Star Trek M5: Timelines
by JovianJeff
Summary: Star Trek M5: Timelines is the story of Starfleet ships plucked from their separate universes and dropped at a time in a B5-oBSG-Farscape verse to face Shadow, then Cylon and PeaceKeeper wars to unite a galaxy and shield a universe from the Time wars.
1. Forward

Timelines a UOC-TWS-AIB AU

**Forward**

Star Trek M5: Timelines is the story of multiple AU Starfleet ships plucked deliberately from their universes and dropped at a time of great upheavals across a galaxy in a universe that never heard of Starfleet. Yet the stakes for this deposit of ships and crews have a far more reaching consequences to many realities.

Much of the first several acts of this story are based on fanfiction stories titled 'A Universe of Change,' 'Those Who Stand,' and 'Allies in Blood,' by Albert Green Jr.

Future acts are based on 'Another Perspective' and 'Ruinations War' also by Albert Green Jr.

They are AUs of his work. An AU of an AU of series I love and couldn't get out of my head. Thank you Mr. Green for writing such inspiring stories and permission for this attempt based on your work.

Diane Duane has been a huge influence on my view of Star Trek and that prompted the myriad alien life in this story as members of the various Starfleets. I'm stretching this beyond the wonderful non-humans of her version of Trek to include aliens from other franchises. In most cases its the only reason they're included.

My approach to such poaching aliens from other franchises are to involve alien characters that are not limited by a tv budget reducing them to merely a skin color change or bumps on the forehead.

Or to quote Shadowjack, 'you can describe any crazy thing and don't have to worry about the visual effects budget. I wouldn't replace any of the Trek standbys, just add new ones. Let's have LOTS of aliens, they're fun.'

Its a what if the various aliens existed in one universe and were members of Starfleet. Expect to see such as Huragok and Sangheili from Halo, or Salarians and Krogan from Mass Effect in the various Starfleets.

This also features a lot of fan made starships. Unique designs I feel in love with their look, concepts or they inspired me of a particular timeline that came up in the story.

For the purpose of the universe this story takes place in a galaxy that is a blend of Babylon Five, the original Battlestar Galactica, and Farscape.

For artifacts only, Halo, Mass Effect, and Stargate are added, specifically the Stargate and the Halos along with the Mass Relays and as antagonist, the Reapers. With a dash of Andromeda for one of the antagonist.

From a Trek point of view the Galactic map would place things roughly along the following;

Alpha Quadrant Babylon Five

Beta Quadrant Battlestar Galactica (original, reimaged is only from other timelines)

Gamma Quadrant Mass Effect (for the Serpent Nebula where the Citadel is located)

Delta Quadrant Farscape

Five acts if you will, the first focusing on B5, with the following growing to include the others.

I'll be including aliens from comic series as well, including one of my favorite from the Alien Legion series, the Jenteks, most of the cultural information about them is taken from the works of CSHayden and her Alien Legion: Arrows of Artemis. A wonderful fanfic.

This story also has elements influenced by fanfics The Best of both universes by Janusi and Man's Potential Ages of Change by Aegnor Taralom.

This by no means is any attempt at writing a 'better story.' It is just different. The best are the original stories that Mr. Green and company wrote, in fact some of the dialogue is directly from that story to show at what points this story is as it unfolds. All of his original characters are his creative property as well as the other authors CSHayden, Janusi and Aegnor Taralom.

**Additional Credits and Disclaimers**

Disclaimers I do not own, nor profit from any of the works used in this fiction such as;

Star Trek, in various incarnation of television, film, book or animation. Babylon 5, Farscape, Andromeda, Earth Final Conflict, Stargate, BSG (both old and reimaged), Alien franchise, Predator, Halo, Mass Effect, Halo, Unreal, Freespace, Dark Crystal, with one or two films mentioned or poached a race from in passing.

The character Sevar is from the three-part unofficial Star Trek mini-series Star Trek: Of Gods and Men.

In this story he is the son of Uhura and Spock from their relationship portrayed in 2009 movie instead of in the mini-series where he is the son of Uhura and Stonn.

Both the characters Donald Varley and Judi Ballard have appeared only once in Star Trek, although Varley was mentioned here and there due to his friendship with Jean-Luc Picard.

'Judi' Ballard only appeared in the same episode as Lal, and only by surname. Lt. Ballard was played by Judyann Elder, which is where I base the character's first name of Judi from.

Killing Time, a novel by Della Van Hise is where the Second History timeline was based off of.

'Q'uandary, a short story by Terri Osborne is where Selar is recruited by the Female Q during the Continuum's civil war.

Brave New World, a short story by Chris Roberson, is used for one timeline of this story.

The Typhon class featured in this story comes from the game Star Trek: Invasion by Activision.

The Kzinti in this story are imagined through Jimmy Diggs' proposed CGI animation adventure, Star Trek: The Lions of the Night, and whose redesign would have been featured on Star Trek: Enterprise's 5th season.

The species Straegis is from the (currently on hold) online game Stargate Worlds, I've chosen to dub them Fourth-Dimensional Lifeforms based on what has been seen of them on the Stargate Worlds wiki.

Fan works that are tapped for this story;

Star Trek: Arcadia is a fan fiction series which is the basis of most of the technological development after Voyager series ended in canon. Its armpadd evolves into the holographic omnitool of later Starfleets.

Star Trek: Warship Voyager is a fanfiction series where the Imperial Federation of United Worlds, Empress Hiroshi Sato, Omega molecule Core and Tactical Holo-Ships system are by 'Lindsay Lohan Phoenix'.

The Socialist Terran Empire and the New Terran Empire, are from Memory Gamma (still researching the actual creator).

United Planets of America is by Elitolu found at Memory Gamma.

The Legacy of Kirk, a fanction story by Paul Gadzikowski for its Project Easter concept.

Kial is from T.L. Morgan's fan fiction series Star Trek: Pendragon.

KOENA is from SushiTheLegend's fan fiction series Star Trek: Future Perils

The character Z'ahm-213 was created by ZZoMBiEXIII at deviantART.

Backdrop situation at Orion VII is from Voices of Babylon's audiodrama productions Three Edged Sword.

The Fanon Fleet;

Ascension, and Insignia class are by Mark Kingsnorth.

Avenger starship and Allegheny runabout class by JamieTakahashi.

Britannia class by calamity_si

Cern class designed by John Evans.

Delphine, Duj'Yay and Duj vo' Hech (Ship of Death) classes by Andrew J Hodges.

Enceladus and Magellan class by Steven Rivers, specs and background of the Enceladus class from the Unity class by Admiral Konya Ophin of the Starfleet Scientific Corps rpg group.

Espial Grace is based off the ship of the rpg of said name of GlennShatowski.

Excalibur class mark II (1900 meters) and mark III (11.6km) by stfanboy in his 'My Take on the Excalibur' on .

Incursion class designed by Capt. W. Harris, this story's mark II is inspired by the designs of MadKoiFish's 25th century starship thread at .

Insignia and Kron class specs as well as the one name for Species 8472, the Sra'xa'diin from Star Trek:Final Frontier fanfiction group.

Pathfinder class designed by David Webber.

Paladin class battlecruiser by Korok of

Paladin class mobile drydock (the USS Zellgotis) by Hummakavuula at deviantART.

Phoenix class is designed by 'drbob', Y'Lan and the Q'tami race are from Star Trek: Renaissance.

Protoss Titan walker by highdarktemplar at deviantART.

Pulsar class starship by .

Savior class based on drawing by GlennShatowski at deviantART of one version of the Espial Grace and concept as an evacuation ship from the Normany Class Supercarrier by Nate Perry.

Starwatecher class was designed by Xavier Gordillo.

Threin class (a variation of the Concorde class) from the Holoworld Fleet rpg group.

Universe class by Doug Drexler.

Wilbur Wright class by carpandean

Wolf class long range explorer by Jayru of

Wright class frigate specs are by Task Force 575. The actual ship designed by John Eaves.

Heartfelt thanks to creators of the following fan works that have given me permission to use their characters or ship designs for this story;

Andre Tremblay for the Apocalypse, Magellan (Centaur-B), Re-Atum and Velocity class

C. Reyes, AKA: Atolm/Azel and Mr. Dufrane for the Bloodwulf, Chariot, Gemini, and Karkadan class.

Chris B. for the Innovation class

Chris Robato for Athena and Mercie the Holograms from his series.

David Lovejoy for the Baltimore, Colossus, Othello class as well as the type 20 shuttle

Joe McMullen for the Wanderer class

John E. Payne for the Grand Alliance, Val'Walo and Wolf (gunship) class

Josheua Samuelson for the Aegis, Discovery, Newton, Perception (both mark I and II) class starships along with the Valkyrie mark III and mark IV fighter

Juan for the Coyotte class and his unique ShipSkin technology concept

Markmassey for the Catecea refit of the Auzris class

Michael Putman for the Oxen class ship Little Engine

Paul Lloyd for the Cardiff class

Phil Sherman for his Star Runner class

Robert Heckadon for the backstory and capabilities of the Timeline explorer, Pierre Boitard class used for Karkadan class that will appear in later acts.

Sam Kowal for the D'taran, Eternity, and Independence class

Special thanks to Albert Green Jr. for allowing me to use his excellent stories to write this AU about.


	2. Prophetable Meetings

**Timelines a UOC-TWS-AIB AU**

**Chapter 01**

**Prophetable Meetings**

**VSS Baltimore, 2359, Second History timeline**

Space distorted and then out of it flew a starship. Its saucer shape would be familiar to many timelines where a Starfleet existed. The fact it had a ring and not nacelles would be the obvious difference.

Its saucer was not the only thing similar to Federation Starfleet designs of other timelines, it had a catamaran split hulls like the Akira class, and its secondary hull extended from the dorsal side of the saucer like the Kelvin type of one alternate reality. Yet there is where the similarities ended.

This Cardiff class had a more direct mount of its secondary hull to the saucer and at the end of its wing like supports were two massive sensor pods occupy the space normally taken by a Federation starship's warp nacelles. Running between the two catamaran hulls was a Vulcan-style annular warp drive.

For its Starfleet hails from Vulcan instead of Earth. Its Captain is one of the rare human ones. Tradition had Vulcans as the Captains of their ships and since the days of Spock and Dr. Richard Daystrom, their ships were sentient, with an AI running them.

Captain Donald Varley was one of the few humans to Captain a starship since the days of Christopher Pike who was the first to do so of the VSS T'Ruda back in the mid-23rd century.

"Almost home," Sevar said seated to Varley's right. The son of Spock and Nyota Uhura kept his eyes on the view screen as he commented, not as reserved as the Ship's Counselor T'Pel with letting his anticipation show. His mother didn't encourage him to display emotion as he grew, but she didn't discourage them either.

"Or at least DS9," Counselor T'Pel commented. Being Vulcan she would not say she missed her husband Tuvok, and looked forward to their reunion at the Shr'Ki class space station in the Bajor system.

On the viewscreen the bridge crew saw familiar stars of the the Idran system in the Gamma Quadrant. Donald smiled as he asked, "Mr. Lore, how are we doing?"

If it had been another ship one might have expected the ship's AI system, an M5, to answer that question, but the multitronics unit mark five named Cecil tended to let the crew answer when they were addressed.

'Courtesy instead of efficiency' Varley recalled the phrase the one time he asked Cecil in private about that habit of his. Donald both knew and had served on plenty of other ships who followed the reverse.

This was a question easily asked Cecil, yet the Soong-type android liked the inclusion. He was not quite like his 'younger brother' Data. Definitely not as literal, and he most certainly had an odd sense of humor.

Lore looked over the operations console stood where most did forward of the command area and to its left.

"All systems are in the green, Captain," he replied in tone tinged with amusement. While Data was far more accepted in Starfleet, Lore still had a successful career. His younger brother was gaining on him however. Rumors abounded that Picard was going to ask Data to serve with him on the new flagship the ShiKahr-D.

**XXX**

Down in sickbay Selar did not see the flashes of light, nor the two Qs who appeared in the Baltimore's sickbay with her. They did not let her see them.

"We arrived in time," the Female Q said to the other Q, "I couldn't have done it without you."

Said other Q raised her eyebrow, a habit she retained in her new state as a Q.

"Well I couldn't have," the first reiterated, "And don't tell Q I was modest, it would give him or our son more to tease me about." Which she didn't find all that unpleasant. She felt a special warmth when father and son were teasing her as a family...and she teased back giving as good as she got.

"You needed me to find...me?" the Q who looked like Selar said, although in fact, she also looked like the other Q here, save not with Vulcan features.

"Exactly," the other Q said, "After all this timeline isn't long for the overspace, and Sisko wanted this ship and crew for our plan to work. Hopefully my husband and son will keep the others distracted."

Selar-the-Q considered the series of events that lead to her becoming a Q to teach the Q how to heal other Qs during their civil war that lead up to the Q procreating.

It also lead to this other Q specifically becoming a mother with Selar-Q delivering her son.

Yet before they returned her to her corporeal existence as 'just' Doctor Selar, they had one other mission for her as a Q. Which is what lead to her finding herself...literally.

Both turned as they sensed something new and looked beyond the bulkhead out into space. "It looks like we were just in time," the female Q mused, "But we can't be obvious about this."

Selar-Q gave the other Q a look that made her defensive, "We -can- be subtle!"

**XXX**

"Interesting," the word would have caught Donald's attention even if it hadn't been uttered by the woman Jean-Luc introduced him to and now they were considering marriage in their future.

Chief Science Officer Judi Ballard sat where in other timelines without a M5, the forward right station would have been Conn, and in M5 timelines it was typically Science I.

In another time and place, Judi Ballard would be teaching science instead of actively involved with it. She would be on a Galaxy class in years to come and even have Data's daughter Lal in one of her classes.

But that was not in this time or place.

"What is it, Altern?" Sevar asked as he realized the Captain wanted to but didn't want to appear to give undue attention to a woman he was in love with. Illogical, but as Sevar's mother would say, love often is.

Since Judi wasn't sure, and Cecil was, for once he spoke up for efficiency instead of courtesy, "Massive space-time distortion. From matching readings on record, I would say an incursion from De Sitter space."

This prompted Meshav to ask, "What is this De Sitter space?"

Looming behind Command, the Sulamid Security Chief didn't mind his unofficial role as the one to ask questions for the non-Vulcans among the crew. At least, most of him didn't mind. Since a Sulamid had octocameral brains, with eight separate personalities, it was more literal most of him in this case.

Standing at three meters tall and resembling a bundle of red and purple tentacles topped by a bundle of eight stalked eyes with triangular pupils, few expected him to be the 'straight man' if one kept thinking humanoid. Still the Subaltern didn't mind its role at all, particularly since the Vulcan crew often didn't get it.

"The last time a starship had any dealings with such a phenomena it was nearly a century ago with the ill-fated Inversion drive," Cecil shared first, then dove into what he would have called a simplistic explanation, "De Sitter space, Subaltern, is a kind of 'overspace' that contains our universe as well as countless others."

"My father had the first recorded experience with both parallel universes and de Sitter space," Sevar volunteered, "He had crossed over to a 'Mirror' universe as his counterpart crossed over into ours."

"Yes," Cecil confirmed, "De Sitter space is what the transporter had beamed through under the right conditions. Three years later the scientist K't'lk came up with the Inversion drive to traveled through De Sitter space as a way to cut through our space as an Intergalactic drive. However the drive had catastrophic side-effects and the project was abandoned."

"Nearly ending the universe was quite a side-effect," T'Pel commented leaving Meshav to wonder if the Counselor perfectly knew what he was up to or perhaps she was actually developing a sense of dry-wit.

"Emergence is a...megastructure," Cecil announced as he displayed what clearly did fit the definition of megastructure, anything at least one megameter, or one thousand kilometers in length.

"That is a lot of megameters long," Meshav said as a deliberate understatement.

**Magog World ship**

Found them. He almost had not amid all the myriad timelines. Yet here they are. Tiny, insignificant, and yet their importance to the enemy meant they were to be eliminated no matter how small their threat.

The One, Gorgan, (*), and Iblis were in agreement. The five of them had their own objectives, plans and plots, yet it would all be for naught if this plan of their enemies was completed.

In the midst of the trillions of Magog, stood their god, the Spirit of the Abyss. He contemplated what his enemies might use of the speck of a ship that measured nearly a kilometer long. It was so small in scale to the twenty linked planets around a star that together made up his world ship.

He had only vaguely been aware his opponents making this move and out of the five of them he was the only one who was free enough to act without any of the enemy directly countering him.

They would not notice at first, but they would become aware if he did not act quickly enough to destroy this small, minute and nearly imperceivable pawn of theirs. It was a seemingly inconsequential target for his conglomeration of planets and star to chase.

Yet the Spirit of the Abyss had given chase and now caught up with it, this 'VSS Baltimore' that existed in a timeline that would not last long in existence. Comparing this timeline to overtime, it would cease to be soon, for even 'now' Kirk and Spock were correcting history. Now was the time to act to eliminate this ship.

Bursting through De Sitter space the Abyss had found his enemies first move in their pitiful play for a failsafe against the inevitable victory of the five of them. None of them, including Iblis, would have thought to look in a timeline with so brief an existence. It was clever, but futile.

"Prepare to attack," Abyss commanded of his followers. He could send out a horde of swarm ships, but instead he decided the Point Singularity Projectors would be enough.

**Baltimore**

It might not seem like a lot to most of the crew, but .001 second is enough time for Cecil to act. He had just enough time to analyze the gravitational radiation proceeding the attack at lightspeed.

He did not have time to warn the crew before he acted. Analysis, conclusion, evasion all in the fractions of a second from detecting the singularity's approach, hallmarks of any multitronics unit since the first ones.

"Incoming fire, point singularity weapon," he informed everyone as restraining fields went up so crew didn't go flying during the evasive action as he rolled the nine hundred thirty eight meters length of starship like some might a fighter. Singularities ended up clearing the shields at a distance measured in centimeters.

"Return fire!" Donald ordered even though he didn't actually think the six phaser arrays would do much against that...ship. Looking to his right, he could see that his first officer agreed with him.

Sevar did believe that logic demanded a reaction to the unprovoked attack. Sevar's parents would probably say he's taking after Uncle Jim after all. Subcommander James T. Kirk would never go down without a fight.

"Cecil ," Varley simply asked, knowing the experienced AI likely knew what he wanted.

"All hailing frequencies and languages, no response yet Captain," Cecil reported.

While it might seem illogical to try and establish a dialogue while this current opponent was firing on them, Cecil could fire, fly, duck and talk all at the same time.

"Can we make it to the wormhole?" Donald asked, knowing Sevar already was performing the calculations in his head regarding the mass of the worldship and how much the Bajorian wormhole could handle.

Their M5 knew what to do already and they were rewarded with a view of heading towards a familiar region of space. They were nearly at the terminus end of the Bajorian wormhole when this attack started anyway.

"That would be a yes," Lore commented.

Sevar knew the conclusions, they could fly though the Bajorian wormhole, their huge pursuer could not, the wormhole simply could not handle its mass. It would collapse if their enemy tried to follow.

Cecil continued to fire aft as they flew towards that aperture in the fabric of space time.

**XXX**

"I hope the Prophets are ready," the female Q said as she tensed while Selar-Q just looked on feeling the subtle power build up for what she knew was about to happen, "And Starfleet is set to save themselves."

Q looked ahead and took Selar-Q's hand, raising her own theatrically, "This is going to hurt."

"Us?" Selar-Q had taken that hand and mimicked the open arm and hands raised gesture.

"Of course not, but space time is about to take a beating..."

The Baltimore flew into the open wormhole, with singularity shots following it.

That's when the wormhole flared up and everyone aboard as well as any entity nearby saw only white.

**XXX**

Donald heard a heartbeat, a steady heartbeat that seemed all around him in this white light where time felt suspended. At first everywhere he looked was white light, then suddenly his friend Ben Sisko was there.

Benjamin Lafayette Sisko, another of the rare human commanders in the Vulcan Starfleet. CO of the Shr-Ki class space station, Deep Space 9 on the other side of the wormhole the Baltimore just entered.

"I'm sorry Don," came the regret ladden words from the man Don serving with when they were both Alterns.

"Sorry? Sorry about what Ben?" he'd ask questions like what are you doing here and not on DS9, later.

"It has to be you."

"Me?"

"Look at it as another chance."

"At what?"

"I can't tell you that yet."

"Cryptic doesn't suit you Ben. Leave that for High Command."

"Fair enough. I will say that your Big Chair is about to get bigger."

**XXX**

When the enemy had fired singularities into the wormhole the ride became very rough. The Baltimore's exit from the wormhole less than graceful.

In fact the ship was spinning.

"Report!" Donald yelled as he could held on as inertia dampers worked overtime to compensate for the Baltimore's spinning. Both Sevar and T'Pel also held on silently, like most Vulcans on the bridge. Meshav was likely the only one who had no difficulties with the spin having spare tentacles to work his console.

If anyone doubted the feeling of rotation ready to throw them out of their seats at any time, all they had to do was look up at any of the viewscreen to confirm visually that the Baltimore was spinning.

Their spin was as they exited the Bajorian wormhole with additional concerns as if the twirling wasn't enough.

"Cecil off line, assuming manual control," Lore cheerfully announced as he worked the console in front of him. Ops was often just a monitoring station, but it could assume helm control as needed.

With a finesse that looked as if he were playing the piano, Lore brought the Baltimore out of its spin and to relative stop. "For my next trick..." he let his voice trail off as he began a ship system's check.

"We're not in the Bajor system," Meshav thought he would cover the obvious first with his report. Most of his eyestalks were looking at his console and their readings.

Sevar now knew what his mother meant regarding the 'feeling' of other shoes and dropping.

"We are..." Judi hesitated and checked with the rest of her bridge team, who confirmed her findings.

"We're in the year 2258."

It was just then that she noticed an interesting fact about the starlight from the quantum resonance scans. Judi had yet more news the bridge and Donald would not want to hear, but had to.

**XXX**

"That could have gone better," Q said to Selar-Q.

"I take it the expansion and transformation of the wormhole was not part of the plan?" Selar-Q surmised as she watched her corporeal self work with her staff to attend to what casualties the Baltimore took in its spin.

"Well not so dramatically no," Q snorted and decided to shift blame, "Starfleet could have done a better job."

Selar-Q did not take the amused bait in Q's voice. She had her own observation to share, "From what I saw of the wormhole, this plan of yours involves more than one starship."

Q gave a slight shrug of her shoulders, "Blame my husband, everyone else does. He of course is only playing with a few ships, leaving the real work with this lot of forty-one to me. Men."

Selar-Q could only agree with the last sentiment.

Q look up through the decks to the bridge and found a reason to change the subject of their conversation.

"I see they've discovered they're in another universe...rather quick for beings so limited," Q noted and gave a mock sigh, "As those wonderful humans my husband likes are prone to say, we've done enough damage here, time to leave for now." The last two words stuck out in Selar-Q's mind.

"We're coming back?" Selar-Q asked.

"Of course, this is just the beginning. I know the others, especially Abyss and Iblis, won't take this laying down. Besides, the longer we stay this early in the plan, the easier the others will find this universe."

With a flash Q was gone, and after one last look at the Selar of the Baltimore, Selar-Q also vanished.

They would leave the starships deposited in this universe to talk to each other.

**XXX**

"Contact. multiple vessels, forty starships," was the first indication Sevar had that Cecil was back online, "They are Starfleet, but from different timelines."

That shocked everyone on the bridge, although the Vulcans (of course) didn't show it.

"How did you determine that so quickly?" came the expected question from Meshav.

"Total Systems Data Sharing," Cecil replied, "It is what our kind of AIs do to network with each other. It appears fast to you due to the different speeds we think at. For you it has been a few seconds..."

"For others it was a few seconds," Lore clarified, "For AIs it can be liken to hours or days depending on the processing speeds involved." He was rather smug with the superiority of faster thinking over organics.

It made for quick updates of the current situation to minimize time bringing Captains and crews up to speed.

"This is with a security buffer all of us are employing, or should," Cecil thought one of them was too trusting in not putting up any buffer at all to filter and examine signals before accepting.

Lore chuckled at that, he knew what Cecil was talking about, although he didn't know which of the forty contacts out there essentially said 'hello, you may override me at your convince.'

"What we have is a fleet of starships, albeit from different timelines," Sevar's statement sounded to Meshav as an encroach on his territory of stating the obvious. Still sometimes Vulcans can be like that.

"In all sorts of shapes and sizes," T'Pel observed as she looked at her armchair mounted console, "The smallest is 190 meters with the largest as 11.6 kilometers."

"Classifications of types are interesting, from science ships to warships, including a few clearly support ships," Sevar was consulting his armchair monitor.

"Which suggest that this isn't an accident," Don followed his First Officer's thinking.

"Agreed, this is more than merely random chance operating in our favor," Sevar stated.

"Ah, what about the axiom 'While the laws of probability not only permit coincidences, they absolutely insist upon them'?" Lore asked.

Sevar inclined his head at the android, "The combinations of just the right type of ships at the same time and place stretches the coincidence too far to say this was one. We were put here, all forty-one of us."

"Sixty-one actually," Cecil interrupted, "Sensor logs from our time in the wormhole show forty-one contacts that I have now matched forty-one with here, but some starships are carrying starships."

"Carrying other starships?" Don never considered the possibility, and yet looking at the size of the smallest starship here, the Coyote class vessel named Ophan, he could see it fitting into the bay on his ship.

"Presumably to extend the range and options a mothership, for lack of a better term, would have in an area. Much like our shuttles or runabouts would do," Cecil elaborated with the comparison.

"Most of these starships have a 'USS' prefix instead of our 'VSS,' the next majority has 'UFS,'" Sevar observed, as they went back to looking over the information Cecil presented to them, "With two ISS."

"As in Terran Empire?" Lore asked, intrigued as he recalled ISS belonged to ships of the mirror universe.

"Yes, one is the Empire of the 'Immortal Khan Noonien Singh,'" and they could hear the quote marks in Cecil's confirmation, "The other is from a Socialist Terran Empire and finally one with the prefix of NXT instead of ISS yet belonging to an Imperial Federation of United Worlds."

"Permission to share the history of our timeline? This in turn will have the other ships share theris," Cecil asked with Donald nodding as he added, "Protocol beta-nine." Logical, nothing strategic or technological.

It really only took a moment once the COs of the gathered starships agreed, which most did. All the M5s finished reading the histories of the other timelines six point two seconds after permission granted.

"We are taken care of if all the Starfleet ships are the sharing kind," Lore pointed out.

"They are," Cecil contributed to address those concerns, "Histories shared bears that conclusion out."

"Presuming they aren't falsified histories," Lore countered more interested in the debate than the truth.

"They maintain a self-consistency that belies this kind of elaborate deception and from forty separate sources. Sources that match the sensor signature of what we saw in the wormhole."

"But it -is- possible," Lore didn't let up for the fun of it.

"Yes, there is a 0.63 % possibility of it," Cecil conceded.

"That's practically a whole percent right there," Lore mused sounding very amused, and let the matter drop.

That was when Varley received what could be called by some as disturbing news from his ship, "Captain, for the duration of stay and due to seniority, command of these forty Starfleet vessels falls to you."

Donald realized that the M5s must have talked with their Captains after coming to their own conclusions. All the commanders would have to do at that point was agree or disagree.

There lingered a slight smirk touched his lips as Donald entertained the notion that their ships were managing their COs well. Sevar noticed it and raised an eyebrow. Both men had shared the same thought.

Donald knew those other Captains must trust their M5's judgment to agree so quickly to his commanding this force of ships, or at least during the duration of this emergency. And stranded in another universe can be said to be an emergency. Well time to get on with this, it won't get any easier and if they were going to go home, an organized effort was the best approach.

"Cecil , put me in touch with the other Captains, its time for us to talk."

**XXX**

They had gone their separate ways for the most part. They were forty-one different timelines with all the evidence their sensors could discern confirmed this universe wasn't their home one. So with the Bajorian wormhole not even opening up despite approaches or triggers, it appeared the starships are trapped here.

So for now they went to survey what was similar about this universe than their own. Astrometrics had already revealed that they were in the year 2258, everyone's past apparently. Yet no confirmation of there even being a Starfleet here. For now they were determining astrographical similarities and differences.

Ships were sharing discoveries and so far none of their governments were in existence here. Varley was curious as to why the majority of timelines were organized under a United Federation of Planets.

Although it did feel right somehow.

Judi had tried to explain it to him. Histories tend to flow along familiar routes. Comparing the unique histories without a Federation of Planets with the Baltimore's own Interstellar Alliance of Planets and the Terran Empire or Imperial Federation of United Worlds, and a pattern of events was easy to follow. All of them had similar major events in their histories.

For instance, every one of them had a Jonathan Archer that helped formed their various polities.

Now that it has been established that their governments do not exist in this timeline in some form, starships are currently surveying homeworlds. Unsurprisingly, the Baltimore went to Vulcan.

**XXX**

"It's the same for most of us, dead worlds," Judi said to a very quiet briefing room. Its quiet was not normally unusual, with mostly Vulcans as section chief, comments were usually made by either herself, Lore or Meshav with the occasional input from Sevar or T'Pel, but this was different, it seemed oppressive.

Or rather, Judi noted, perhaps depressive is the right descriptive, "Five ships out of forty-one found their counterpart homeworlds." She gave a wane smile, "Twenty-seven homeworlds does sound like a lot."

No-one said anything, Meshav's eyestalks looked around at all of them, yet he knew this wasn't a time for one of his obvious statements. Twenty-seven wasn't a lot considering the hundreds of different species represented on the forty-one starships. Lore felt no restraints, "A whopping five percent."

**XXX**

One artificial source of subspace signals was found. It was a riddle. A thousand year old space station that had a mix of the different Starfleet's technologies, yet was clearly the product of the Earth of this timeline. It was based on an O'Neill space station design and it was originally suppose to be a diplomatic space station.

"...to further this mystery," Meshav led the briefing this time, "We found messages to various people throughout the forty-one ships apparently made by themselves for themselves. They're from the future."

Vulcans didn't groan, except in extreme pain, Judi and Donald were too use to being around Vulcans to groan save inwardly. A paradox, likely a predestination paradox. "Have the messages sent around," he ordered, "Let's hear what our future selves have to say."

**XXX**

"My name is Valen... " Varley listened to what seemed to be the last of the messages this Minbari who wasn't born a Minbari had recorded from a thousand years ago. It didn't explain the technology that had to come from the various ships of the Fleet. Nor did it explain the messages he saw flagged for him.

By name.

"...could avert the Earth-Minbari conflict. A warning to Delenn or Duhkat... But without the war, there would be no Babylon 4 and no Babylon 5. There would be no rallying point against the Darkness... and the Shadows would win, now and a thousand years from now. I cannot deviate from the circle of which I am a part. I am the beginning of the story, as Zathras said... and a prisoner of it. I dare not change the end..."

Donald Varley, his name flagged with messages that have been waiting one thousand years for him. Predestination paradox at its worse.

"Well Don," the image of himself began in a uniform like the one he wore now, "There isn't an easy way around this and the headaches of recalling talking to myself ad infinitum run quick to ad nauseam."

That Varley gave a tug on his tunic in a habit this Varley knew he had, "Predestination paradox, not my favorite subject to talk about, but it seems that is what we have here. First, unless you're about to break the circle, or cycle, you aren't recording this from a thousand years ago."

Which was a relief a part of Don's mind said as he continued to listen to himself, "You've had an encounter with the wormhole aliens and more importantly Ben. You're going to have another one. Be ready in July to come to the following coordinates..." which Donald saw was in the vicinity of Epsilon Eridani.

"Once you're in the anomaly you'll encounter that day, the wormhole aliens will make contact with you and explain why they put us, put you, here in this universe. You're not going to like it. I didn't and I'm you."

**XXX**

Indeed that July the Baltimore, along with other starships did enter the rift in time and space around B4. It was interesting to note that the development of multitronics affected how the various Starfleets ended up with cloaking technology. There was a sense that without one, the other wouldn't have happened. Meshav had a theory after reading so many alternate timelines, Donald will have to sit down with his Security Chief and talk about it one day.

Today it was a mere afterthought as the cloaked starships dove into the rift.

This time Donald was ready for this experienced. It helped that 'he' told himself that it would happen. In fact after this, it is precisely what he would do, record a message to himself.

"What is this place?" he asked as the white light didn't fade. It still permeated everything, it just allowed him to see objects, shapes, scenes instead of just light.

He was on a bridge, like his own or many of the ones in this throw-together-fleet, and seated in the Captain's chair. Like his own, a seat for the first officer and counselor was left and right of him.

"A Galaxy class starship,"' a familiar voice said from behind Donald and to the left. Turning he looked up the ramp at the rear, where in front of what had to be a turbolift door stood Benjamin Sisko.

Wait, that uniform, the pips, the combadge, "Not Subcommander Sisko?"

"Yes and no, Don. I was Subcommander Sisko until the timeline was corrected," Ben said as he walked down the ramp and over to his friend. His hand held out, Don stood and shook it.

"Corrected?" that left the handshake as an afterthought.

"Yes, corrected. Don there are time wars going on. More than one temporal cold war turned hot and there are consequences and casualties in that war. You, as you are now, are a casualty."

"Me?" Donald knew now he really would have a headache after this.

"The Romulans came up with a plan, they called Project Second History. They go back in time and make sure their enemies, primarily the Federation of Planets didn't exist..." Ben knew Don would put it together.

"So my timeline came about. I take it from reading the other starship's histories that Earth is the center of this union of races instead of Vulcan?" It would explain the histories of so many other starship crews.

"Yes, although you do see variants, like Minbar in one history, or Qo'noS in another among the gathered Starfleets, even the Borg in one...the bottom line is Don, the Romulans were helped by the Na'kuhl. They are one of the time traveling races who wanted the temporal wars hot. This was one of their ploys."

Don consider that, "It worked. There is no Federation in my history. Earth is in ruins as is Qo'noS and many other worlds, the Breen are practically extinct. In most histories of the other ships they're fine, we're fine."

"That's because the timeline was corrected, however what we did was pull you out before that happened."

"Here comes part I am not going to like," Donald ventured.

"More or less. While the cliché we don't have a lot of time isn't true here, we should get started."

"With what?"

"Going over why we put you here. You see this universe was selected as a...failsafe, a haven in case things really go south with the temporal wars. If universes start collapsing, we wanted a refuge for histories."

Something occurred to Don, "That's why all the different starships? We're keepers of those universe's histories. The ones already lost, or will be. We're like a Memory... Omega."

Soberly Ben nodded, "Yes Don. Each one of the starships represented a universes that is gone, but that is not the only reason you're here. You need to start something that will eventually make this place, this universe safe from the worse case scenario and it starts with a space station called Babylon Five."


	3. This is Home Now

**Timelines a UOC-TWS-AIB AU**

**This is Home Now**

**Chapter 02**

**VSS Baltimore, Sector 900**

"We're stuck," Donald grumbled over breakfast with Judi who sat across from him, "Its not that we can't go home, there is no home to go to. Our timelines were temporary and once 'corrected' ceased to be."

Judi stopped with a portion of omelet at the end of her fork ready to travel the rest of the way into her gorgeous (at least Don thought so) lips. "Are you still at the meeting with Ben? That was a day ago."

Her morsel of omelet continue its journey and let the silence of her chewing work before she swallowed and gave him an amused look, "Don, there is no use complaining with what we can't change. Let's work on what we can affect. We're here, this is home and we not only can make a difference, we've been told we should." It was not so much license to toss the Prime Directive out the airlock as to do so responsibly.

"If we choose to believe Ben, if that was really Ben Sisko at all," Donald aired doubts he didn't really hold onto anymore.

"You read Captain Neeyala's report as well as I had and I understood all the physics her crew laid out from their studies. Ben merely confirmed them and for our own good."

"'Wormholes were found leading all over the galaxy and beyond, even to our home universes, but not to our home timelines. They've all changed, changed back to the way they were 'suppose' to be," he summed up the layman's version of that report, "She's been cataloging space time signatures of universes for years now and should have been able to trace wormholes to our homes."

"If they still existed," Judi had read far more than the layman's part of the Anhur's report. She understood the physics of it. They could find their home signatures, the histories and events of those times were different.

Because the timelines they 'grew up' in didn't exist anymore and if they went back to their home universes, each and every person would change to fit in. Who they are now would cease to what's 'suppose to be'.

"If they still existed," Don repeated in a defeated tone.

Judi gave him another look, and then shook her head, amused yet resigned, "Okay, I guess this is very interesting and might fall outside the forbidden subject of shop talk."

"I would think you would be very interested in what we are going to say to ourselves in two years when B4 reappears," a rueful smile made its way under his mustache, "We'll be even more organized then, Cecil..."

"I could just hear 'Cecil's T/O' was about to come up and -that- dear sir is shop."

"Is that a new shade of lipstick you're wearing?" Donald said by way of a peace offering.

Finally he noticed, crossed Judi's mind, yet she still smiled and gave him points for trying, "It might be."

"And does it taste of strawberries and cream?" most modern lipstick had a flavor, none of them waxy.

"It might," she said rising up and slowly making her way around their table, he did his part in pushing back enough for her to slip onto his lap. Which she did, with his arms encircling her.

"Then might we explore something else besides the final frontier?" she answered his question with a light kiss first. Then taking his face in her hands she leaned over for a more serious kiss afterwards.

**XXX**

Captain Donald Varley took a look at the Table of Organization and marveled. Despite being from forty-one different timelines, and their differing Starfleets, these starships were grouped in function in relation to the rest of the fleet. There were even Joint Task Force options. JTF Genesis was an interesting one.

This did not list the embarked starships separately, which made sense to Varley as they were really just extensions of their mothershp. They would support whatever function their mothership held in this T/O.

And what a T/O Donald found it to be.

Six SCE ships, five SSC ships, five support ships, three diplomatic ships, three SAR ships and two scouts.

Varley did chide himself for thinking of the sixteen other ships listed as 'tacfleet' as an afterthought. The five warships, three rapid response ships, three gunships, three troop transports and three SOC ships deserved better and it was likely the rest of the Fleet was here to support them as much as he might want the reserve. He must start thinking like an admiral and not let his own prejudices limit his views.

"Cecil bring up the deployments," he ordered, and watched the current deployment of the forty other starships both locally and around the galaxy..."Around the galaxy." He spoke aloud out of astonishment. There were ships with drives he could only imagine. Slipstream, transwarp, wormhole, hyperdrive...it was amazing.

"I see Captain Delenn is ready to meet her native counterpart," he saw the Anla'shok-zha, an Innovation class starship, move to where an Ambassador Delenn was traveling from Babylon 5 to Minbari space.

"Captain Benteen reports successful tracking and elimination of the Raider threat," Donald looked at the first JTF Operation Safe Space. USS Charleston, a Wanderer class starship, was the one of the eight starships in that JTF tasked to track the Raiders to their mothership and end their piracy of the space lanes.

"Captain Neeyela's latest report is ready for you to read sir," Donald heard and briefly brought it up.

He smiled, "I see Judi's hand in this Cecil. I take it this is physics dumbed down so someone not a science major could understand?" The AI's chuckle was enough to confirm that supposition.

"Briefly put, they confirm the quantum signatures of our former timelines are both there and not."

"Bottom line we try to go back where we come from it won't be the same universe, but a corrected one and we'll be 'corrected' to its timeline not remembering a thing of the one we're from. No Cecil, I guess we stay."

It was really a confirmation of what she'd concluded already. It might have been unreasonable to ask for a double or triple check, but Varley guessed they'd have done so even without orders. They had to be sure.

Which is why he was going over this now. "Draft up a letter thanking them and call a meeting of the SSC. We'll need a detail survey of the galaxy, and have the SCE look both into Babylon Four to set up converting it the next time its past one appears in the rift. We should also have the Dwarpadalana start seeding relays."

"Captain Anoleis will look forward to that," Cecil commented on the CO of the Chariot class ship apart of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, "It is amazing Don what the future held for most timelines, like the relays."

Donald snorted, relays, wormhole relays. In most futures they've developed artificial wormholes that let ships reach distant parts of the galaxy or with subspace transporters, let a person beam across the galaxy.

"I'm beginning to feel like the relic here with everyone else ahead of us," Don shared in a rueful tone thinking of the ships from the Plenipotentiary just a decade ahead to the Espial Grace in the 26th century.

"I know what you mean Don," and that brought him out of the pending depression. His ship and crew were in the exact same position. He can't let it get to him for their sakes. "What else is on the table Cecil?"

"The Stargates," Cecil replied knowing Captain Heggo of the Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar asked about them, Heggo was another new race to Don, a Mondoshawan, "Apparently we never had them in our timeline, but others did. This universe appeared to have them."

Now Donald remembered that proposal, so many, which had crossed his terminal, "Tell him he has a go to investigate why this galaxy had a Stargate network and yet now only has a single Stargate."

**XXX**

It was time for yet another meeting, this one he called, face to face so he shouldn't complain. Judi was waiting for him near the briefing room door. He caught a look in her eyes, she was up to something.

"I still think that your Chief Science Officer should be in this meeting," she began without preamble, "They are the Captains of the science ships after all. It just seemed appropriate."

_Yep,_ Donald concluded, _up to something._

He made a show of looking left and right, "I don't see Salek around and from your logic, the Chief Engineer should be here since I've also asked the SCE ships CO to be at this meeting."

She gave a too casual shrug, "Well, we certainly don't want to bother him. In fact, I should just sit in as an observer."

His smile had been wry, now it grew into a grin, he could guess what this was really about. He found it rather cute, which means it was teasable, "This wouldn't be about a certain Captain attending would it?"

"Might be."

"Who in other timelines is a renown author of holographic romance novels."

"Possibly."

"Who in this particular author's timeline she decided instead to join Starfleet, yet wrote those novels as a sideline instead of main career?"

"I think someone coming might just have done that, or so I've read in the histories shared."

"And despite her Starfleet career she wrote the same books, just not as consecutively, including the best-selling 'A Love More Tangled Than A Tholian Web.'"

"You know," Judi put on a wide eyed act of innocence, "I think she did at that."

Donald chuckled, "Judi, I'm sure there will be plenty of time to talk to her later, but really, she's here as a Starfleet Captain of the USS Eagle, and not as a romance author."

"Just a few minutes?" she put on her best melt-his-resolve looks that for once Don survived it intact.

Barely.

"Judi.." now he was nearly pleading.

"Okay, okay. You can't blame a girl for trying. However if Undieela Noor has the time..."

"Yes honey, I'll ask if she wouldn't mind spending it chatting with you."

Don was glad he at least rated a peck on the cheek in gratitude instead of a glare for balking her. He watched her saunter away and knew she was putting an extra sway into her hips for him.

He smiled, shook his head to try and clear it, then walked into the briefing room.

**XXX**

"General and Captains, welcome aboard," Varley said once the five COs from the SSC ships, and the designated head of the SCE were settled in the conference room.

He wasn't familiar with some of their species. He was with the CO of the Eagle, Andorian and the Captain of the Rongo-mai-taha-nui, Aili Lavena, is a species Varley knew about, the Pacificans.

Jiterica he knew of from his friend Jean-Luc, who is serving with her, no served with her past tense, their timeline gone. At least in the corrected version Jean-Luc is now a Captain of the USS Stargazer.

For this Jiterica that was decades ago. Technically she was the only non-humanoid at this gathering although she didn't actually look non-humanoid because she wore a humanoid containment suit.

Her half fish-bowl helmet let Varley see the swirl of what one might assume is smoke, but that would be wrong. She is of the Nizhrak'a species and they are living gas clouds native to the gas-giant Nizhara.

The Pathfinder species hadn't been encountered yet in his timeline, in Neeyala and some of her people have joined Starfleet and even serve aboard her Re-Atum class ship, the UESS Anhur.

This was unlike the CO of the Enceladus class ship, the UFS pIraqSIS, a science ship near a kilometer. He is not from any species. NamTar was illegally genetically engineered for a study of the origin of intellect.

Captain M'Lee's ship the Gwynn, was oddly enough one of two Magellan classes in the fleet. However neither the Gwynn nor the Centaur-B are the same type of ship. Each of their Magellan classes were two completely different kinds of starships, they just share the name as they come from different timelines.

She had a species name that Don couldn't pronounce and is further unusual in that she is calcivorous, feeding on calcium for nourishment. M'Lee stood out without being one of the youngest Captains.

"Thank you for coming Captains. I know assignments could have been just relayed to you, but I wanted to meet for probably the same reasons you do."

"How often do we encounter others from another universe, much less multiple ones?" Lavena answered.

"Depends," Neeyala nearly snorted, seemingly sour, yet there was an undertone of a woman who was enjoying herself and had to put on the appearance of being annoyed, "Some of our missions are mapping unrealized realities. Our studies of wormholes have taken us to other universes. It isn't a first for us."

Neeyala kept reminding Varley of an excitable professor who constantly forgot she had to be testy for appearance sake. It left Varley smiling as he turned to the tallest Captain here (but not in this ad hoc Fleet actually), "Are you set with coordinating the refined surveys Captain NamTar?"

"Indeed I am," he nodded to Noor, Lavena and M'Lee, the latter intimidated by the veteran captains, "We shall begin immediately. We already have an overall idea of what this universe is like, how much it matches or diverges from our own. What we will do now is take a closer look at the differences."

"General Jiterica," 'General' was not a rank Don was use to, but then most of them had non-Vulcan ranks so this deviation shouldn't bother him, "Your SCE has the headache of dealing with the predestination paradox of Bayblon Four."

Inside her helmet she had shaped ghostly eyes and a mouth, feminine lips even, he wasn't sure why, "I had a conversation with Benjamin Sisko too, the SCE is working on how to upgrade B4 to match what we found in it already. The crew of the da Vinci are the best to lead that effort. We'll be ready when it appears again."

He rose and they followed suit, "Then I won't keep any one you. Godspeed to you all."

Judi did marginally forgive him by dinner for not letting her talk with Captain Noor when she was aboard.

**XXX**

"Equivalence-induction technique?" Donald asked of the Chief Science Officer of the UFS da Vinci. She was someone known in his own timeline as the inventor of the ill-fated Inversion drive Sevar's father and his crew had tested and nearly ended the entire universe. On the da Vinci they had made it work perfectly.

Captain Sonya Gomez had her hair straighten instead of the curly haired woman Varley knew as a uhlan, or what most of the other fleets would call an ensign. She stood with a smile next to her officer as she talked.

Varley had never met a Hamalki before, the one meter tall arachnid is transparent in most places, translucent in others with twelve multi-jointed legs. Twelve eyes burning like blue-hot opals clustered in groups of four at one end, four at the other, four studded along the ridge, a quartet gazed at Donald as she spoke.

"Simply put," Commander K't'lk was saying, "It is where we do something at one locality and something similar happens at another locality without any direct spatial connection between the locations."

"And this is how we will build this...shield Ben was talking about?" the concept of it still staggered him.

"Yes, I told B'n I could do this and I know we can," K't'lk spoke like wind chimes, "We set this up in this galaxy to affect all the other galaxies. We still have much to do D'n'ld, lots of engineering to work out."

"But in principle we -can- do this, no matter how impossible it sounds like," Donald wanted to be sure.

"Of course, don't your people have a saying the impossible takes a little longer?" K't'lk asked.

"It is the motto of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers," Gomez brightly proclaimed.

**XXX**

"I'm sorry, 'the Prophets told you to'?" it was one of the stranger meetings he's had to date, this one with the CO of the third largest starship, the Espial Grace, a Universe class starship about three kilometers long.

"Why yes Captain Varley," the CO who was also a Priestess replied, Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan sat across from Donald in a single-breasted, yet with a wide overlap, tunic, where gold had resumed the color of command.

There was an awkward pause as Varley wasn't sure what he could say to the casual way she replied, "They told you to resurrect the recently late Centauri Emperor Turhan?"

Zhaan frowned, puzzled, "I don't understand, I was told that you had a Prophet experience. One with Ben, Benjamin Sisko."

"I had, and you know Ben, but you're from the 26th century..."

"I know the Emissary of the Prophets, he's helped me more than once. He told me it was vital to restore Turhan to life, and my ship does have that capacity," she explained one of the marvels of the Grace.

Donald had read the report of that application of Genesis technology, life from lifelessness indeed. He'd have to read up on it more later, "So Ben told you to restore Turhan?"

"Yes, does that make it easier to accept Captain? I wasn't aware you knew the Emissary."

"I knew, know him as Subcommander Ben Sisko, I'm still getting use to the Emissary of the wormhole alie-" he saw the hint of a frown, "The Prophets." He rose, so did she, "Thank you for your time Pa'u."

He'd just have to accept this like he did the Anla'shok-zha's rescue of Talia Winters from an organization called Psi Corp. Apparently they were going to dissect her. It was another reason why there was no rush to contact this Earth Alliance. That is a society with deep sociological problems to create Psi Corp, an organization segregating certain people among their population 'for the good of all'.

**XXX**

"Yes Captain Delenn," he said to the image on his viewer, "By all means, put the resources of the entire Fleet behind your CMO to cure this Drafa plague. Cecil make sure very ship knows and passes it on."

"Thank you Captain Varley it is particularly important for her that she does good in this universe."

Varley remembered who the CMO of the Anla'shok-zha is, and what the reports of her native self had been, "Captain, if I had a counterpart who did what this Dilgar called Deathwalker had I'd want to atone for her."

Her smile was faint, "Even though you did nothing of the kind in your life. Yes, Captain she feels the need to balance the scales. Thank you Captain Varley."

"Its been nearly two years now," Varley remarked noticing it was November now, November of 2259, their cloaking devices have let them remain hidden and their explorations are gaining them an understanding of this galaxy with the many things unknown previously, and the few, like a Galactic barrier, which are known.

"Do you think its time to reveal ourselves?" Cecil asked the question he knew Don wanted him to ask.

"Not yet, Cecil," Donald replied wearily, "Not yet. If we're following Ben's plan, the earliest will be 2260."

**XXX**

"...I merely suggest now is not the time to reveal ourselves Captain Thor," the CO of the Savior class starship sat across from Varley, having come to personally ask about First contact, "I think the Vree would handle the first contact with the Asgard far better than Earth Alliance would us-"

"Given their leadership isn't turning their world from a democracy to a dictatorship," the CO of the second largest starship in this ad hoc fleet interjected. The eight kilometer long Savior class starships were designed primarily as evacuation ships used for saving entire world populations from death from oncoming disasters.

"Granted Captain, however if anyone is going to be approached first I think you'll agree it should be the Abbai, not the Vree. They are on the list though," which wasn't that large. A year of surveys and very few planets actually qualify for first contact given their sociological development or lack thereof.

Deep black eyes of the Asgard regarded the human, and recalled his own oath to his Starfleet, one he had decided to extend to following the agreed upon chain of command instead of just acting on his own. He had conformed enough to wear a uniform on duty, he could conform enough to follow this command.

Thor gave a nod, then vanished in a blaze of white light, a very different transporter of the UESS Xisuthros.

"Dismissed," Donald said to the empty air, he sighed, "This job is becoming my life more than captaining my own ship."

"It is why Admirals exist Don," as per tradition, in private first names were used between ship and Captain.

"But I'm not going there, not yet. Bumping up myself to Admiral may seem right, but I'm not ready for it."

**XXX**

"What you've done Captain is quite an achievement in the last two years," Varley was nearing the end of another long day, and he concluded this will likely be the norm as long as he commands the Fleet.

Across from him sat the CO of the Dyson-D, a machine commanding another machine. Why not, another part of his weary mind said, it is not as if one day Data might have earned a command in his timeline and this ad-hoc fleet has two other ships commanded by AIs, a hologram and an android, well a 'golem'.

Dyson though is one of the three ships from a Special Operations Command, a military branch of Starfleet Intelligence. SOC operates starships, and special forces teams under the banner of Starfleet Intelligence.

Overtly the Dyson-D is a 'state ship', hosting a full diplomatic corps on board. This is a cover to allow it to perform intelligence operations in a given area of space for SOC and now for the Fleet.

"D'ravsai has uploaded the intelligence to Cecil, Varley Captain," the geth platform named Legion replied.

"Planting agents in the four major powers is incredible," Varley remarked scrolling up to the beginning of the report, "And their presence hasn't been questioned?"

"No Varley Captain, they have not. An application of a technology of our timeline, a Matter Stream Modifier, modifies biological Cylon models by re-writing DNA to biologies of the appropriate race. The last year has been volatile enough in four of the five major powers to allow insertion without question."

"Right...President Clark's Administration came from assassination?" He wasn't completely surprised the Geth Captain did not prevent that. Varley was use to Vulcans, one might argue which was colder.

"With the maneuvering from questionable sources and everyone presuming the other was behind a new face they didn't know the year before, placing an agent on the Presidential staff was easy with the political environment of Earth Alliance."

"And you've met with equal success in the other three powers here," Varley noted.

"Hence our comprehensive intelligence reports, including the involvement of the Centauri with an Ancient race few others seem to know about called the Shadows."

"Please Captain Legion, tell me more..."

**XXX**

"I agree Captain Wrex," Varley spoke to the CO from race new to him, but not others apparently not other timelines, the Krogan was a very imposing species from their sheer bulk, "The Narn are outmatched and heading for a trap. This clearly doesn't violate either of our Prime Directives since this elder race called Shadows is head and shoulders above the Narn or any of the local powers."

"So Operation Divine Intervention..." the millennia plus old warrior casually began.

"Is a go," Varley confirmed, "Take da Vinci and Eagle with you." The ships from the SCE and the Starfleet Scientific Corps respectively will study these Shadows while Wrex's ship, the Qo'noS engages them.

"You sure you won't need any further back up?" Varley didn't want to seem as if he was questioning someone who apparently had joined Starfleet back in Archer's day and served up to the year 2393. There were older beings than Wrex, but none who had consecutively served in Starfleet of any timeline.

Wrex grunted, a sound one could confuse with the bark of a chuckle, "Trying to be funny Varley? If I do you have the RRF ready, but I do carry my own backup."

That was when Varley recalled that the Qo'noS was one of nine starships that carry other starships aboard.

"Besides," Wrex went on, "I plan on letting the Kid do the fighting at first. It will be good for him."

M'Lee was one of the youngest starship Captains, one of three, of which Captain Ec'co of the UESS Hak'tyl is one of those three. His Independent class starship had weapons that were mere concepts to Varley. One of which apparently belonging to the Stargate creators called a drone weapon system.

"Don't worry Varley," Wrex added, "My timeline is one of the Klingon based Starfleets, but that doesn't mean I think with either my gun or blade. Just means when we fight, we go all the way."

**Narn G'Qaun-class Command ship G'Vak, December 2259**

Warleader G'Sten looked at the plot in front of him as the ships exited hyperspace. It looked as if their gamble was about to pay off. Scans still showed that Gorash VII remained lightly defended.

Scans did not show the quartet of cloaked Starfleet ships da Vinci-B, Eagle, Hak'tyl and Qo'noS.

"Fighters screen is out and proceeding as detailed Warleader," Sh'Dal reported as a good aide should even when it was obvious on the plot.

"Good," G'Sten said keeping his approval and confidence in his voice. He kept out the nagging doubt his nephew had planted in him. G'Kar had called just moments ago to relay intelligence that the Centauri might just be moving against the homeworld.

It was unconfirmed intelligence, but with G'Kar convinced it was enough to make G'Sten doubt the wisdom of this attack. Yet just as he told his favorite nephew he had to go through with this operation.

"We're reading four unknown vessels," Sh'Dal's voice broke G'Sten's train of thought.

"How long before we can jump again," this felt too much like a trap now and that nagging seed of doubt G'Kar had planted had blossomed to full maturity. They had to retreat and now.

"Not until the jump engines can recharge," Sh'Dal replied with the answer G'Sten expected.

"Then we have no choice, prepare to attack," the Warleader ordered the fleet.

Energy mines were launched from the fleet and the four black vessels seem to shrug off the impacts.

In turn the unknowns each launched a black spiky sphere that exploded into over forty fighters per former sphere. Frazi class heavy fighters flew to meet them in a battle.

Then one of the unknowns fired a beam that sliced into the engine block of the G'San.

It was quite sudden that one of the unknowns exploded, filling their minds with a scream that made most in the fleet cover their ears momentarily.

**XXX**

Captain Sonya Gomez of the SCE ship da Vinci saw nothing wrong with 'beam bombing' a Shadow ship. Wrex gave a chuckle as it worked. It amused him since no-one else thought of even trying it.

However bombs weren't the only thing the da Vinci transported, although these beamings were to Narn ships, damaged Narn ships. Apart of the da Vinci's SCE team, Xi actually volunteered 'fix on the fly'.

It could be safely said that not one Narn every saw Xi on their ships. Since Ensign Xi is a Nanite colony. One split off from the nanties of Kavis Alpha IV. They chose the name Xi when they enrolled in Starfleet.

**XXX**

Purple hued beams lashed out from the Shadow ships one slicing into a Narn cruiser's engine block. The G'San lost propulsion and fell out of formation as it started a slow bank and tumble away.

Then it seemed miraculously it started to move again under its own power.

"Sir!" Sh'Dal shouted in disbelief, "The G'San has restored propulsion!" Once more the aide took a look and even ran back the footage they had of the G'San. Clearly there -was- damage, but it wasn't so bad now.

Ensign Xi worked as quickly as the Borg might to regenerate one their ships to repair the G'San.

Beamed into the damaged region of the G'San, the nanites worked quickly to restore just enough to get the ship under its own power again. However since quite a lot of material was vaporized by the passage of the Shadow's slicing beam weapon, da Vinci had to replicate and beam in materials Xi needed to work with.

Once the G'San was back to operating, although not perfect condition, Gomez beamed Xi out.

G'Sak and G'Tak fired their forward cannons intersecting them on one of the unknowns, cutting off one of the spine projections and eliciting another of those screams. This time the Narn were prepared and not a single fighter was lost to the sudden invasion of a wail in their minds.

While beam bombing worked at first, the Shadows found they could sense the initial lock on and shatter the transporter carrier beam. From that point on the Starfleet ships had to fight 'the old fashioned way.'

Another of the enemy exploded and this time G'Sten was able to see what happened. "Playback!' he ordered Sh'Dal and there on his screen they saw a ball of light ripple from a distorted patch of space to impact against one of the black unknown vessels before it detonated. "Yield?"

"Sixty-five megatons," Sh'Dal answered in awe tinged with terror since he also realized they didn't really see whatever fired that shot and apparently the unknowns didn't either. The attack on the fleet ended as the last two started firing their beams in the area of space the last ball of light had come from.

Then out of another patch of seemingly empty space points of light that vaguely looked squid like under magnification streamed towards the remaining Shadow ships. They began to pour into one side of the main body of each Shadow ship and exit out the other side. Three Shadow ships died in that stream at once.

As the Narn and remaining Shadow ship watched, the points of light flew to another point of empty space and vanished as they entered the cloaked Hak'tyl's drone bay.

**XXX**

"Jump engines online," Sh'Dal said in the next breath perhaps more excitedly than he normally would have.

"Alert the fleet, we must escape while we can," G'Sten knew where he was taking his fleet. With only a few ships lost he was headed back to homeworld. If this was a trap and G'Kar was right...

"Can we tow the G'Stan and G'Tak?" they were miraculously the only ships to take crippling damage, the losses among the fighters was at an unprecedented low of less than one percent given the odds.

Sh'Dal looked over the status report, and said in a mystified voice, "We don't have to. Both ships are ready to get underway on their own power."

G'Sten gazed at his aide as if he thought the Narn was making this up, then made the leap of logic it must be whatever it was that was killing the enemy was somehow also helping them.

"Order the fleet to jump and have the fighters follow us into hyperspace," G'Sten ordered, not knowing what intervened on their behalf, but fully acknowledging something had.

If G'Kar was right, and homeworld could hold out, G'Sten would bring enough ships and fighters to properly defend against the probably Centauri main offensive.

**Espial Grace, Sector 730, May 2260**

Shock had long worn off in the little over a month since Clark declared martial law due to an 'alien incursion' into the Earth solar system.

Today Varley called a meeting on the Grace. It was the nature of this class of ship where 'rooms' and chambers had more in common with holodecks of centuries past than purpose built compartments.

Varley liked the decision to meet on the Grace. It was truly a marvel to be aboard and have the space to meet with all forty starship Captains without feeling cramped in a conference room. They met in what appeared to be a meadow, scents of still blooming plants were on the air as well as sights of butterflies dancing on the breeze. It felt cool and refreshing, unlike the topic of their discussion.

Everyone had been called in, although not everyone personally came. The COs at the Stargate site wanted to remain, they believed they were onto something. They would attend holographically, which the Grace could easily accommodate. Meeting in the meadow was a peaceful setting to offset the subject at hand.

Despite the distance though, holo-presence at the meeting was possible for Captains not physically aboard this universe class starship. With the Grace's holography one couldn't tell they weren't really here.

Varley admitted it was pretty exciting what JTF Stargate were onto. They had found evidence of where the twelve tribes may have went to either before or after the Stargate was damaged. With permission to pursue their line of investigation the Rongo-mai-taha-nui and Gwynn might be away for a while. Hak'tyl is on standby to return if needed, but that is only if the Shadows make a significant move.

Otherwise they have more than enough starships to deal with the local powers short of the First Ones.

Don looked around at the gathering of this very mixed and different Starfleet it isn't the one from his universe in actuality, but it was in spirit. He nodded to the Captain of the Wakanda to begin.

"I have to admit, General Hague is the Admiral Leyton of this timeline. He acts like him.," Calvin 'Cal' Hudson observed about Hague since his coup. Benteen had confirmed that assessment, but no more.

Donald was not alone in thinking here was much more than what was said, yet he couldn't force her to share it. That was something she was going to have to do on her own, if ever. All he knew was that she was following him around ever since last June when she heard his voice during the rescue of the Streib victims.

"Update," Grace interrupted, "President Clark has ordered the bombing of civilian targets on Mars."

Everyone looked at each other.

"It's only been five days since Xavier Montoya announced that he will not implement Marshal law," M'Lee uttered in astonishment, "We have got to do something." Her distress were causing her spines to extend from different points on her body and a razored fin to rise from her spine as she began to shift unconsciously to aggressive mode of her species.

Those completely unfamiliar with her race just stared. Ec'co moved to her side to take her hand and once their fingers intertwined, she started to calm down, her spines retracting and her fin lowering like ruffled feathers settling back into place. She felt the hand of the 'youngest Captain club' take her hand. Sadie Endesha of the UPA Zellgotis had filled much of the same niche in her timeline as Tryla Scott as a starship Captain had in others.

M'Lee took the reassurance of her friends and tried not to think how delicious Sadie smelled. That was the trouble with friendships with species who had bones. They all smelled like the next meal.

Varley politely ignored the reaction as did the others around the table. However each of them became a starship Captain, they were here now and it wasn't as if he could dismiss them from their ships.

"Update," Grace interrupted again, "I am picking up activity in the Solis Planum region."

"Please Grace, show us," Zhaan ordered, and her M5 complied surprising no-one that mid-26th century sensors could casually scan ten light years distance with such detail.

Fading into view was a hologram of two Thunderbolts flying low over Martian soil. They could hear a voice, probably belonging to one of the pilots. "Standing by, weapons hot."

He was interrupted by another man pleading, "Don't do it. We've got women and children down here. Don't do it!"

"That sounded like Governor Montoya," Zhaan remarked identifying the speaker, "That means this is headed towards Mars Dome One. That's the colonial capital and one of the colony's three major cities."

A third voice could now be heard, it didn't betray any emotions as he sealed those people's fate. "Omega One, you are clear to drop." And with that two missiles streaked out from one of the fighters moving towards one of the glass domes dotting the ground. A large explosion followed as the weapons struck.

"Captain, we can save those people," Zhaan knew they could and she wasn't talking about resurrection, "But every second is critical." Donald knew what they could do in his time, by the 26th century...

"Go."

"Grace, beam everyone to their ships and get us to Mars," she looked just once at Varley, "Thank you."

Then he was gone, transported to the Baltimore, while at the same time every Captain was transported to their ship. Grace departed the space Babylon Four dwelled in to arrive in Mars orbit seconds later.

It didn't need its coaxial warp drive when its 'standard' could cruise at 10,000 light years ever 1.35 seconds.

**USS Charleston, Sector 452, Orion System**

"What did I miss?" Captain Erika Benteen asked as the subspace transporter delivered her back to the bridge of her ship lightyears away from the Grace.

Thane only paused a moment, and that was all the surprised he showed to her just appearing. Subspace transporters of the Grace's didn't have a materialization effect, not a noticeable one to his senses.

She was suddenly...there.

"Loyalist fleet is still closing in. General Hague is meeting with others in high orbit of Orion VII. Loyalist ships in closer orbit have not acted as if they had seen him. Our current theory is they are laying a trap with the fleets moving in to close it," her M5 reported as Erika took her seat between XO and Counselor.

Neither Commander Thane Krios nor Counselor K'Ehleyr gave Benteen a second glance as she sat.

Charles displayed icons of the fleets on the main screen. "Here is General Hague's ship the Alexander meeting with the Netherlands and Thebes. In closer orbit are the loyalist ships Shikoro and Nauplius. Closing in from deep space is a task for headed up by the EAS Pendragon, coming in from the jumpgate is the Clarkstown, and from the vector the Alexander had come in is EAS Schwarzkopf with its task force."

"They are obviously going all out for Hague. Given our orders of minimal interference, our options are limited, yet we must do something," Samara said from her Tactical console above and behind Erika.

That put a rare smile touching Erika's lips. If the Justicar was backing her, she felt more confident to act. She was going to anyway and confident K'Ehleyr knew her intension made them easier to act on.

"Charles, status of the THSS online yet?"

One word had her out of her seat, "No."

Without another word she was up the ramp and into a turbolift. She didn't have to tell the lift where to go, Charles knew and sent the lift to the pod section atop the Charleston's saucer section to its rear.

**XXX**

Bael Nomine felt her before the lift arrived. The Betazoid had been working along with the others in the team to get the prototype working since they first existed the wormhole two years ago with some success, just not according to specs the Admiral invested this far into the Tactical Holographic Ships System.

In theory and controlled practice, the pod attached atop the Charleston could establish a tactical Holo-Grid that creates a back up artificially generated attack fleet within a one-lighsecond bubble around the ship.

However Bael wasn't the only one warned that their Captain was inbound. "She's coming Nichoals," Charles said quietly to the Lieutenant supervising the team.

Nicholas Locarno was another of Leyton's hand-picked Red Squad or Cadet Training Squad 47. He led the 47s who aided the Admiral with his coup of Earth by disabling Earth's power distribution center in Lisbon.

"What's the problem?" Benteen asked as she exited the turbolift, "We've been in this system and out of Fleet's eyes long enough to get the final preparations completed."

That had been the major problem in the last two years, getting out of Fleet sensor range or supposed range. There was talk of upgrading the Baltimore's sensor pods and the Grace had to have the range to beam them.

But Grace wasn't Erika's concern, she didn't think Captain Zhaan would say a thing.

"It is more a matter of reinforcing the EPS conduits for continuous power usage," the Lukythian with an honorary rank of Lieutenant Commander explained. Erika turned on him.

"You!" she nearly spat, "Are the reason we are here! If we had not have to grab you from Dominion held space to get this system ready for the Admiral.."

Lukythians were masters of holographic technology, and not well valued by the Dominion. Leyton had other ideas once the proposal for the THSS came across his desk. He knew Ullom could get it to work.

"May I point out," Ullom spoke up in defense, "That it was not just me, but the fact your transwarp drive was damaged. We had to take the wormhole back to the Alpha Quadrant."

Erika's eyes narrowed as she knew the Lukythian was right, still it was easier to blame him than her twin sister Leah Brahms. The woman only joined Starfleet to get away from the pain of the loss of her family.

Pain, loss and an Admiral who listened resulted in an invitation to do something to make sure such incidents never happened again. Leah joined Starfleet and made the holy grail of transwarp drive work.

"How long?" it was hard to laser gaze someone with eyes so far apart as a Lukythian's eyes were, like trying to stare down a hammerhead shark. Yet somehow Eirka did the equivalent and Ullom seemed to fret.

"Minutes, minutes and we can be assured the system won't burn out with prolonged use," he stammered.

"Now the power output..." Bael muttered then winced as he sensed he had been heard after all.

"Will be fine. Brahms," rarely, ever was it Leah out of Erika's mouth, "Will have the transwarp solar reactor online and Charles has it locked onto this star. So you be ready."

She turned to leave, then tossed back over her shoulder, "If you prefer Balak or 'Moramee to supervise..."

Everyone, including Nicholas froze at that. Balak is a thug, one could put up with him, however the head of the Charleston's MACO detachment was not someone anyone wanted to watch over them.

Major Ripa 'Moramee was concerned only with the mission, he didn't care about their lives. A brutal and ruthless MACO commander, they'd work faster now to insure they wouldn't need his kind of 'supervision'.

**XXX**

"EAS Pendragon's task force approaching our engagement envelope," Charles reported and displayed on screen, "THSS online. Transwarp solar reactor online. I can maintain combat cloak or use holo-cloak."

Benteen considered that, combat cloak would be at minimum, while a holo-cloak is primarily among the visual and thermal range of stealth only. It wouldn't hide the neutrinos the warp core gave off.

And the warp core would remain online along with the prototype transwarp solar reactor. First theorized by Montgomery Scott, it beams raw energy from a star lightyears away into the ship's dilithium chamber.

It should give the emitter and hence the fleet generated the power it would need as after all the actual ships aren't generating their own power to fight, at least not actually.

They could bring no more firepower to bear than the Charleston. Against the natives this was sufficient, back home, had they made it, this would let them engage fleets of other starships.

"Holo-cloak Charles. We won't be getting into their weapons range anyway and they had enough problems with Minbari stealth systems. I don't think they'll pick us up."

"It is extremely unlikely," Thane agreed, "But we should not underestimate them."

**XXX**

Captain Hannah Crawford watched with satisfaction as her task force continued to close on Hague's last known position as the continued feed from the EAS Shikoro supplied them. This would be a good mission.

Hannah didn't like the fact she had to share this with Charlotte Clark. That Presidential appointee rubbed her the wrong way with her put in charge of a Nova class dreadnought that she didn't earn command of.

"Another two hours and we can start this shindig," Hannah remarked to her XO.

"We've got ships ahead," a sensor rating reported, "One...three...six of them. Ma'am!" Now he knew better to get excited, Hannah didn't like unnecessary excitement to rile her up as she puts it.

However when her XO seemed worried as he looked over the rating's shoulder, she ordered, "Screen five."

She could see why her crew was shocked as she too saw the identities of the sextet of ships inbound.

Caledonia...Hesperia...Messenia...Zethus four ships shot down at Io at the start of the civil war.

Achaemenides, and Xanadu destroyed since the start of it.

"They must have been in cold shut down," her XO theorized why they hadn't been spotted before, "They're power up now."

Everyone was sweating as they approached attack range. More than once, despite the disadvantage of it, active sensors pulsed to confirm that there were really six Omega class destroyers approaching them.

Each time they were confirmed and when attack range was achieved, an almost shrill voice announced, "They're launching fighters!"

**XXX**

Benteen watched as her six holo-Omegas launched holo-Starfuries at the mix of two Omega class destroyers and four Hyperion class heavy cruisers.

This was Erika's way to remain 'uninvolved' and yet provide some defense for her General. After all to the natives it will be their own technology against them.

Erika could have chosen Novas, but in choosing those who had fallen for her General she felt she was serving him more than merely throwing superior firepower at his enemies. She was making a point.

Which meant survivors.

"Pendragon gets to escape," Erika chose as the fight neared its end, "Good touch to include damage to our ships and...bodies?" Charles obliged and zoomed into one view of a virtual body.

It had been blown out along with wreckage from the Messenia when it was hit.

"Captain Crawford might have noticed something amiss if such details were missing."

Everything, including holographic debris and bodies remained until the EAS Pendragon opened a jump point and left, then the six Omegas and their fighters rippled out of existence as their programs ceased.

**XXX**

"Update, the Clarkstown is engaging the Alexander," Charles reported to them as his sensors picked it up.

"Charles get us over there. Protect the Alexander!" Erika ordered.

"Are we openly interfering?" Thane asked. He wanted to be clear about this course of action. He was aware there was a difference between helping Hague and helping his side of the Earth Alliance civil war.

Erika Benteen stared at the new image Charlie displayed. Alexander was running and not fighting back, fighters were launched to act as a screen, but the Clarkstown was not hesitating. They were firing.

"Shot will get past interceptor fire," Charles announced, and Erika could only guess why the M5 spoke up.

"The General?"

"Affirmative...hit mid-ships!"

"Beam him out of there Charles!" Erika didn't care if the others knew she knew where Hague was and the fact she had planted a bug to track his movements. That's why Charles was aware of his location.

"He has experienced explosive decompression of the chamber he was in. If I had not caught him, his body would have been lost to space."

"Body?" Erika dropped back into her seat feeling dead as it sounded like Hague was.

"Body as in still living, but gravely injured. Dr. Solus is working on him," Charles amended his earlier statement.

"Thane you have the bridge," Erika said not explaining herself as she hurried down to sick bay.


	4. Squaring the Circle

** Timelines a UOC-TWS-AIB AU**

** Chapter 03**

**Squaring the Circle**

**Babylon 5, May 14, 2260**

"I can get to hate this station," Captain John Sheridan said feeling the absence of Delenn. She had gone out, -again-. This time, like all the others, she had to go. She might get help, she might not be coming back. When the local powers needed them the most, the Minbari were considering pulling away further than their typical isolationistic tendencies that only recently, with Babylon Five, had changed.

Yet, thinking of her was a nice distraction from the weight on his shoulders as the events mounted up. With the bombing of Mars and the declared independence from EarthGov, Babylon Five had joined with Orion VII and Promixa III in declaring independence from Earth Alliance until President Clark stepped down out of office. Out of the three, only Babylon Five had any kind of real armament or defense.

Prime Minister Gretchen Moran of Orion VII and Governor Charles Vincent of Proxima III were looking to him to stay strong since neither of them expected their succession from EA to last the week. In truth John Sheridan didn't think any of them would be free for a month unless something changed.

Clark had Earthforce, however what Sheridan was gambling on was not all of Earthforce was going to blindly follow the President's orders. What happened on Mars was not reassuring in some ways, in others, it was. They bombed 'only' a few domes. Hopefully they realized only so many atrocities can be committed before the people rise up. Hopefully 'the people' will wise up to do the rising. Lots of hope he knew.

With the creation of such police state organizations as the Ministry of Peace and their bullyboys the Nightwatch, counting on 'the people' seemed like long odds at best. But they were all they had.

Yes, it was far more pleasant to think about something as simple as missing Delenn. The irony that over ten years ago her race was his sworn enemy was not lost on him.

John also felt the weight of the resistance on his shoulders with the loss of Hague. No body to mourn over, as the Alexander was hit where he was at. If there had been a body left over, it would have been spaced.

Major Ed Ryan of the Alexander, and Captain Sandra Hiroshi of the Churchill are looking to him, and he could imagine whatever resistance ships out there will do so too. Babylon Five will be a symbol to them.

Whatever was coming, John knew it was going to be heavy and if B5 survived it would be a miracle.

**XXX**

Four Cylon model Zoes had been inserted into the station's population, with three of them alien, Centauri, Minbari and Narn, the likeness between them and the human barely prompted a second glance.

This might just change shortly.

Legion had contingency plans based on what the Dyson-D's STG regiment had uncovered. One plan, the Zoe called G'Lyta was about to be put into operation. The MSM had given her Narn genes something extra.

Slipping into Green sector was easy when she was willing to 'cheat' with telepathy. One 'look over there' and she was in. Even if they suspected telepathy there aren't any Narn telepaths at this time. The guards wouldn't suspect given the other three model Zoes also were telepaths and helped G'Lyta get into Green sector.

Then the Minbari, Centauri and Human telepaths melted back into the general population of the station.

G'Kar was surprised by the young Narn outside of his door, "Young lady, you should seek shelter..." and was surprised at himself by not suggesting in his quarters. It wasn't that the woman was unattractive, it was just something...wrong with that suggestion he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"I need to talk to you grandfather," she said sweeping by him. Using shock first was an acceptable tactic, "And I can explain that, if we go see Dr. Franklin."

One baffled Narn Ambassador was soon at medlab and sitting by an anxious appearing G'Lyta. Stephen Franklin didn't balk at first, he'd save that until -after- the test came back.

"Ambassador? Do you want to explain this, or are we keeping this private?" he asked as he returned to where his two Narn guest were waiting. As far as he knew G'Kar had a daughter, who is seven years old.

"You mean...it is, she is, I am?" G'Kar did all but stutter.

"It's a long story," G'Lyta said grabbing her grandfather's wrist to hurry him out of medlab, "I can tell you later...in private and Dr. Franklin, I promise to tell you later too!"

She did wait until they were back in his quarters.

"Long story short," G'Lyta began, "I'm from the future..." it wasn't a total lie, just not this timeline's future, "You, that is the woman who will have my mother hasn't yet. I want to make sure you survive to have me."

Okay that was -really- stretching things, but it was getting his attention, "That means Babylon Five has to survive." This plan called involved self-interest and tying that to B5's survival. Zoe thought it was brilliant.

"So I want to know if you can convince great granduncle G'Sten to divert some ships here to protect B5."

"I'm not sure.." he knew the idea was actually a good one, but there was a problem..."We have a treaty with Earth Alliance..."

G'Lyta was ready to shoot that down, "Babylon Five has succeeded from Earth Alliance. You can extend diplomatic recognition and a hand of friendship as well as support from the Narn Regime."

He looked to her eyes as if he was wavering, he just needed one more tap to get him to agree.

_Its very important grandfather,_ it was G'Lyta's trump card to motivate G'Kar, her 'grandfather'.

G'Kar's eyes widened as he suddenly grabbed G'Lyta by her shoulders, "You're a telepath!"

"Yes grandfather, you're successful in getting the telepathic gene back to our people, but you won't if Babylon Five falls."

It is a brilliant plan, devious, playing with the mind, but it was just as Legion surmised. This model Zoe didn't need to be a telepath to sense that someone had just become -very- motivated.

Just as Legion had planned.

**XXX**

It was expected that Clark would send forces to reclaim the space station. It felt like only a few hours since the arrival of the Alexander and Churchill before jump points opened and those loyal to Clark ships exited.

Military spacecraft were now poised and ready to fire at each other. Fighters seem to fill the space between them and yet the first shot had yet to be fired. An eventuality that everyone knew was coming.

Alexander and Churchill stood ready to defend Babylon Five. Their fighters along with the station's were now gathered and waiting for the attack they hoped would never come, yet knew it would.

Across from them were a fleet of two Hyperions and two Omegas with squadrons of Thunderbolts and Starfuries was well as a breaching pod.

Reality was nothing like dreaded expectation. Both sides were ready to fight. Commander Susan Ivanova was out leading the Starfury squadrons poised to defend their station. Sheridan felt he couldn't ask the pilots to face down their fellow pilots unless one of the command staff was with them.

"This is captain Dexter Smith of the Earth Alliance destroyer Agrippa to Babylon Five and renegade ships. You are ordered to surrender your command and prepare to be boarded. This is your only warning. If you do not surrender we will be forced to initiate deadly force."

Susan heard John speak to them, and metaphorically stood with him as she was prepared to hit the thrusters to bring any fight to the enemy.

"Let them fire first. We won't start this fight but by God we will finish it."

They were clearly outnumbered, enemy fighters seem to fill the sky, but Susan wouldn't flinch and wouldn't allow a single fighter on her side to do so either.

Smith gave the order, the fighters, the capitol ships, started to fire, Susan's was the first to fly forward.

Behind her, to her left, right, above and below her, Starfuries flew after her. The two sides of fighters moving closer and closer, when suddenly she had company and it wasn't any kind of fighter she knew.

"Lieutenant Colonel Tryla Scott, USS Emela-ntouka to aid Babylon Five," said a woman's voice to the right.

"Lieutenant Colonel Veronica Stadi, USS Armstrong, also here to help," said a woman to her left.

"Lieutenant Colonel Refractions of Dawn, USS Espial Grace," a feminine voice declared from above.

"Lieutenant Colonel Sanj'ik, USS Inaieu, here to assist in defense," a woman announced from below.

"Colonel Enyala, USS Saladin, in support of your squadron," this voice was from behind and right.

"Lieutenant Miral Paris, USS Naranek, watching your back," another woman called from behind and left.

'Naranek'? That's a Vorlon title. Definitely this had to be some humor she was going to have them explain once this was over. A quick 360 scan did show unknown fighters keeping pace with her.

In fact they flew so well it was as if they were one unit instead of seven fighters.

No matter how much Susan spun, turned or pivoted her Starfury, the four Valkyrie, one Slipfighter, and one Thunder class stayed with her. It was follow the leader with Ivanova in the lead.

Wings from four starships were likely overkill, but the collective M5s knew these six CAGs would want to fight by Commander Ivanova's side and had more in common with her than not.

Quickly Susan looked left and right and saw unknown fighters easily keeping up with them. Checking her scopes she could see that over ninety fighters had joined them suddenly, out of nowhere.

Now they outnumbered the loyalist fighters three to one. Susan was almost giddy, yet her Russian fatalism reasserted itself and she knew even though the other side was outnumbered they weren't going to stand down. Smith's side did fire the first shots, and that was when the impossible happened.

Shots began to stop against some kind of energy field around the new unknown fighters, who in turn started to fire back with the skill precision of veterans.

These fighters were actually firing to disable, not destroy, Susan's forces couldn't afford that luxury.

"Plan Shieldmaiden!" Susan heard Tryla order and whatever kind of shield the fighters had were now being used to protect each and every one of Babylon Five's, Alexander's and Churchill's fighters.

"Don't get sloppy children, unless you want to be a drone," Enyala advised with a very real thread.

No fighter pilot wanted to be reduced to a remote control drone by its ship M5. It was a common CAG threat and made good enough times that the remainder was typically not taken as a bluff.

Nothing made it past the assortment of very different fighters, not even the breeching pod as a geth dropship swooped down to grab it in its three claws to fly off with it like captured prey.

**XXX**

Then five vessels seem to appear as suddenly as the new fighters did. "This is Captian Donald Varley of the Baltimore. We recognize Babylon Five as an independent power and are committed to its protection. We ask for the immediate cessation of the hostilities."

Captain Smith looked at these very strange looking ships with human names, at least four of them did. His sensor operators were getting good enough visuals that they could see the English lettering on the hulls.

Baltimore, da Vinci-B, Eagle, Emela-ntouka, and Hlalhif. What are these human traitors doing?

Two of them were about the size of warships, yet it was only the almost the smallest one that had any decent kind of armor. Unlike the rest of them, that one, the Emela-ntouka, wasn't filled with windows.

"Sir these are target practice," his XO said with contempt.

"If they are testing our resolve, we're about to show them how far loyal officers in Earthforce will go to obeying our orders," Smith declared with some heat. He was angry they were going to make him do this.

While thoughts of tanks and students from history did momentarily cross his mind, he pushed them aside.

They want to take a so-called 'moral' stance, let them pay the price. His wife would understand, his kids would understand. He understood. This is his duty, easy or hard, he had to do it.

Smith still cursed each and every one of them for making him do his duty in this manner.

"We can't scan the enemy, but most of them seem minimally armored, only one decently so and that's the gunship," or so the sensor op speculated drawing Smith from dark thoughts of firing on protesters.

"The Baltimore is naked to our guns. Must be a civilian ship," Smith's XO's observation didn't help matters.

Smith took a quick look, they all had nacelles, most had saucers save for that armored gun ship. That must be their military asset, "Concentrate fire on the Emela-ntouka, but spare a shot to the Baltimore."

His exec nodded, "We take out the leader, maybe the rest will stand down."

"On my order," if his task force was going to kill civilians, he was going to give the order and live with the nightmares afterwards, "Fire." In his mind's eye he already saw them exploding, fire consuming those ships-

Everyone was in shock as shots fired were stopped by some kind of energy field.

"Just like the fighters," the XO said numbly.

"What?" Smith hadn't heard of this.

"Reports from the fighters of some kind of shield, but I thought it was just heat of the battle impressions, misses they were attributing to some new kind of tech, given the strange fighters..."

"We'll talk about that later," with 'that' meaning reporting to one's CO -anything- odd, "What was that?"

One of the five ships were on the move.

**XXX**

Eagle flew forward to Babylon Five, its octet of quad pulse phasers in PDP mode demonstrating that at least in the timelines where Joshua Anders designed starships, they had the notion of Point Defense Phasers.

Smith found that missiles fired at B5 never made it for the station's interceptors to even try and intercept. Whatever the Eagle was using, it out-ranged any kind of interceptor he was aware of.

Briefly Smith and Sheridan wondered if this was unique to the saucer and single nacelle ship.

Varley had other things on his mind, the next phase of the plan.

**XXX**

"You have a go, Captain Gomez," Varley's voice was relayed to the da Vinci.

"Alright Bonnie, you heard the man, move us into position, the two Omega class first," Gomez ordered and her ship surged forward. Smith would describe it as an 'art deco' version of the saucer and nacelle ships.

"You got it Sonnie," the M5 of the da-Vinci-B, Belicia, replied as she flew the ship at the enemy.

**XXX**

Smith was astounded, it was the smallest of this collection of odd-ball ships that was charging -him-!

**XXX**

Sonya heard Thay complain in her native language. When she was that upset or spoke a little too quickly, the universal translator couldn't follow her.

"I know Thay, you meant it to be used as a tool," Gomez tried to sooth her Breen friend and First Officer.

"Like your Firemen," she said in standard, then the da Vinci was in range and began to fire.

Internally loaded to fill the forward torpedo tube was the Breen energy dissipator. Intended in their timeline to use on runaway power sources, impending warp core breeches and such emergencies, it was not a fast cycling 'weapon' it is in other timelines. Chief Engineer Pomru and Thay had worked a miracle with it.

They had worked to 'weaponize' it, which is why they were able to get off a second shot, but that was it.

While she still didn't like this application of it, this was more humane than if the Fleet had to open fire.

**XXX**

Agrippa and her sister ship suddenly saw a ball of green energy fly towards them.

"Wha-what? What's going on?" Smith yelled as lights flickered and suddenly went out as the power in his ship...died. It was nearly gone completely by the time the second shot hit Agrippa's sister ship.

**XXX**

Smoke rose up from Thay's panel, followed by a string of what must be Breen cursing.

"I know, its a tool, not a weapon," Sonya yelled as da Vinci evaded the two Hyperion ships now firing at it.

"Pomru, what do you have for me?"

"Hold your camels!" Sonya smiled, Pomru thought he had a great grasp of English, yet the truth of the matter is there were misconceptions with that grasp, "Iminy xmas this is a mess." She believed the felinoid Tavitan meant hold your horses and probably Jimmy Crickets.

She could also hear lots of whistles in the background. That meant like her SCE 2iC, was very upset right now, but Lighter Than Some would still work like mad to get the system up and running again.

"Chwolkk here Captian. We are working on repair."

Xi and Ri were on it too. The five of them, plus the other engineers would work as fast as they could. They were highly motivated to do so. Not only is Ri, Xi's best friend, but also a colony crewmember, a Lekgolo. Hundreds of worm-like creatures who can use their combined intelligence to control machines or fix them.

Right now the dissipator was stuck in the torpedo tube. Burned and fused mechanisms wouldn't let it rise up out of the way. If they have to get into a fight, the phasers and rear torpedo tubes were it for now.

Pomru spotted a seabee over a panel and dashed over on all fours. It was easy and faster running this way.

What he spotted was literally a tiny holographic bee, just not one that ever existed in nature. This is the Fighting 'Bee' mascot created by Frank J. Iafrate back in 1942. Sporting a sailor's cap, brandishing a pipe wrench in one hand, a hammer in another, and a machine gun in two other hands...a bee is four cm long.

Belicia often used it as a tiny holographic 'point of reference' for the crew to talk to, a cursor to point things out to them, or acting as their very own Jiminy Cricket dispensing advice or providing a friendly ear.

Bee was a natural nickname for the hologram, she had found the source of the problem before they did

Unfortunately this wasn't one of the situations where either Xi or Ri shined, nor Pomru or Lighter Than Air. This was not a repair job as it is a replace job.

With firing resumed and Belicia flying the ship, the da Vinci banked and was soon out of Earthforce firing range. They weren't out of hers, but she knew the warships would be upset if she finished the fight.

They did finish it as they locked onto weapon ports and emplacements, firing with phasers used with a surgical skill to take out weapon after ship mounted weapon.

**XXX**

"Captain Sheridan," John saw the visage of an African American man in his fifties. From the com origin this had to be the Captain of the Baltimore whose forces won a nearly bloodless fight.

"Captain Varley," came the reply, "Thanks for your help. I don't know where you came from or why you're here, or even who you're with, but your help is appreciated."

"We're not just extending diplomatic recognition to you Captain Sheridan, but to Mars, Proxima III and Orion VII. We've also dispatched ships to every colony to prevent a repeat of Mars," Donald wanted to be up front and not have Sheridan hear about this after the fact. Trust was going to be hard enough when everyone realized how many starships were around now that the Fleet was finally coming out into the open.

**XXX**

Senior Captain Terrell Drake, commander of the EAS Evanston, and Group Leader for the second wave lead his ships into Babylon controlled space. He was confident it was going to revert back to EarthGov with the forces he had under his command if they hadn't surrendered to Captain Smith.

That outlook died after the first sensor sweep of the area. It died a death by bafflement.

No-one looked damaged, not enough to explain why there wasn't any fighting. Maybe the rebels surrendered after some kind of fight. There is wreckage of fighters. But why surrender after what would be only a bloody nose? Neither the Churchill nor the Alexander appeared to have received any damage at all.

"It doesn't make any sense sir," his XO said in a quiet voice beside him, "Why stop fighting? If they were going to commit fighters, their ships should have entered the fight."

"Maybe they thought Smith was bluffing and were calling him on it, when they found out he wasn't?"

"Calling the bluff with just the fighters-" the question was interrupted as the com tech announced a hail.

"Put it on," Drake was curious what was going on. He didn't expect an unknown human in an odd outfit.

"This is Captain Donald Varley of the Baltimore. We have extended diplomatic recognition to Babylon Five as an independent nation and hereby is under our protection. Please stand down. Respond."

"Power generation is off the scale," the sensor tech reported, "And sir, now that we've had time to scan throughly, the Omegas are drifting powerless and the Hyperions have their weapons...shot off."

"Shot off?" the XO filled the words with the incredulity Drake shared with him.

Drake didn't have time for that and Varley heard too much on this com, he turned to face the screen, Drake's look resolved, "Negative. We have authority here. Do not force us to fire on you, Baltimore."

Sheridan looked at what might have seemed a laughable stand-off. He could only wonder from the power spikes he saw as his crew tried to measure the output of the Baltimore, much less the other ships with her.

Drake didn't wonder, he gave a final ultimatum.

"Baltimore, you will surrender your vessel immediately or we will disable or destroy it."

"You don't want to start something that I will finish Captain Dr-" the firing started before Donald finished.

Varley had to give them an option, a chance, as he stalled for time, hoping da Vinci was able to get their energy dissipator back up and running.

However now the Baltimore was taking weapons fire. Does he hold the line or return fire? Would a show of force engender a cease fire or harden their resolve? This wasn't the time to debate. "Cecil, disarm them."

Humiliation was not the preferred method for the long term, however if it meant there would be a long term, then it was the...logical choice to make.

Cecil targeted beam weapons first. With the previous ships they had time to scan and locate, this time the M5s didn't have that much of a buffer, yet he had the Agrippa to base his firing solutions off of.

Drake knew that unlike the vids 'targeting weapons' was at best a tricky proposition. Your ship was moving, the enemy ship was moving and despite how large weapon emplacements were scaled to a man when scaled to a ship they were small targets. The Baltimore's weapons fire was as if the Evanston was stationary.

There was no evasive, e-webs were useless, armor was no better than tinfoil. Drake and the rest of the invading force saw was red beams fly six strips along the Baltimore's saucer. Each beam hit a specific target.

There wasn't a weapon emplacement left intact on the Evanston once the firing was done save missile tubes and that was because Cecil didn't want to cause secondary explosions taking them out.

On the bridge of the Evanston, the XO spoke into the stunned silence, "Shot off."

Now they knew what had happened.

**XXX**

G'Kar had been following the fight and had more than once ran back the times the alien beam weapons fired and compared them to the beam weapons of the invisible ships that saved the Fleet and in turn Homeworld.

"Its them," he concluded knowing the long search for his people's saviors had just ended. Inwardly G'Ltya smiled, this was going along well. She pathed the other three to let them know and they in turn the Dyson.

**XXX**

Another of those strange saucer and nacelled ships faded into view. Its appearance wasn't the suddenness the others had, it shimmered and wavered before becoming visible as if it had been invisible before now.

They could see the name USS Charleston on its hull, another Human name on these beyond human vessels.

Yet that was not what had every Earthforce ship and fighter's attention. Whether they were loyalist or rebel, they were riveted upon hearing the voice and viewing the image of someone all too familiar.

"This is General William Hague and I call upon you to stand down and cease firing," they heard him say. It had been days of healing since the Charleston beamed him aboard when he had been spaced from a shot to the mid-section of the Alexander in the Orion system that had blown him out.

During those days Benteen did not return to the Fleet and focused on making sure he healed. Yet once he knew what was going on, he asked to be brought here and here he hoped to stop a fight before it began.

Loyalist saw a chance to end the fighting too...by getting rid of Hague. Omega class destroyers, surviving Hyperion class heavy cruisers and escorting Nova class dreadnoughts poured their fire into the Charleston.

Charleston wasn't the smallest ship there, yet it was tiny in comparison, a mere 393 meters long. All the ships firing at it wasn't just to destroy it, but to obliterate it. This was a firing squad in the grossest sense.

It was not a bombardment the ship could withstand indefinitely, nor did Beneteen intend to. She had wanted to fire from cloak, but she knew the General would want to give them a chance, one she wouldn't have.

Not if what she had been studying about him was correct and she had no reason to doubt.

On the Baltimore Varely held onto the hope that the appearance of futility might make them stop to listen.

He was mistaken in not taking into account human steadfastness. How resolute these people can be. He also did not have the history of a people who lived through the Battle of the Line. Reading the report of the Eternity Class Temporal Research Vessel UFS Jules Verne regarding that battle lent nothing to the actual experience and the kind of people who fought it.

These are people who would not give up just because it did not look possible to win.

**XXX**

Escalation was the byword as missiles were soon launched at the Charleston. They were not conventional warheads but nukes. With nothing of Earthforce was getting through and finding out the leader of this whole rebellion was on that tiny little ship just shy of four hundred meters long was enough for the CO of the Pournelle to decide on his own to solve the rebel problem once and for all.

Captain Drake screamed over the com to the Pournelle, "You were not authorized to use nuclear weapons!"

A scream that would have been for naught if Drake's intent was to spare the saucer ship. For Drake it was a matter of orders, of following the chain of command. At least it was a matter of orders until the light died down from the nuclear exchange and the Charleston was still there, no worse for the assault.

Eyes on every watching Earthforce ship loyalist or rebel opened wide. Ten megatons, more than enough to gut any warship, even a Minbari Sharlin class warcruiser and the Charleston was still intact afterwards.

Then a single ball of light left the Charleston and flew at the Pournelle. On the Baltimore, in his own mind, Varley mirrored Drake, mentally shouting, 'You are not authorized to use photon torpedoes!'

Except it wasn't a photon torpedo. Charles had needlessly escalated from a photon to a quantum torpedo.

When it detonated and the light died away this time, there wasn't a Pournelle anymore.

In addition every Loyalist ship near the Pournelle was scorched black on the sides that had been facing the former Omega class destroyer. What followed the silence was the voice of cold certainty.

"This is Erika Benteen of the USS Charleston. The next ship that fires on mine dies."

Drake just stared at this new face. This beautiful face. This cold and deadly face. He looked into her eyes and knew there was no bluff in them. If any more of his forces fired, they would cease to exist.

"Yield?" he didn't even turn to look at the sensor rating, he couldn't tear his eyes off of the ice queen.

"One hundred and thirty...megatons..." came the reply in sheer disbelief.

It wasn't a matter of force now. He wasn't going to call Benteen's bluff. If what she had was a one-shot prototype wonder, then she used it well. If she had more, his fleet was dead.

Hague had come up with some superweapon and the President needed to find out about it. This Intel was hot and far bigger than retaking Babylon Five is at the moment. With his remaining Destroyers and Starfuries loyal to Earth, Drake had his surviving force turn towards the now active jumpgate and depart.

Smith could only watch them go as there was enough power to just get some juice into the sensors. His sole relief is that life support would be back on in time to save the crew.

However he couldn't follow Drake, he was stuck and he knew Drake had to leave him.

So only he and his initial and disabled forces were around when a quartet of jump points opened up above Babylon Five and six Minbari ships exited, two from one jump point with one of those like Hague's ships.

A saucer and twin nacelle ship that was clearly a Minbari design. The conclusion was self-evident. Hague must have been working with the Minbari, making him a traitor twice over.

Five more jump points blossomed to the right and out flew a quintet of G'Quan class heavy cruisers.

Yet the late arrivals were not over as a fleet of Vree Xorr and Xill class cruisers flew out of a jump point. Then fading into view like the Charleston had done was a saucer and nacelle ship eight kilometers long.

It would seem to Varley the Fleet had a ways to go with coordinating plans, given Delenn's, Legion's and Thor's separate additions to support Babylon Five that had not been discussed with him.

For Earthforce the party was over and this round went to the rebels and their alien friends.

**XXX**

John felt relieved, he turned to the pick-up, "General I am -so- glad to see you. I don't know where you found these friends of yours, but they were a big help."

"I didn't think I would make it myself John," and Hague was still not fully recovered. Charleston's medical sciences were ahead of Earth Alliance's, but it wasn't the Espial Grace, even their miracles take time.

"When things settle down, you and I need to talk, for now I'm turning things over to you. While reports of my death have indeed been exaggerated, it was a very near thing. We'll talk soon John. Hague out."

His face vanished, to be replaced by that Benteen woman, "This is Captain Benteen, the General is fatigued and is resting in our sickbay. Give him a few hours and he'll be up to talking to you Captain Sheridan."

"Sir," Lieutenant Corwin spoke up, "Ambassador Delenn -and- Warleader G'Sten want to talk to you."

Captain John Sheridan shook his head. Hours ago he thought he was going out fighting and now it seems Babylon Five, and if Varley is telling the truth, Proxima and Orion, maybe even Mars will keep their stance.

**UESS Hak'tyl, Proxima III orbit**

Captain Ec'co's single eye looked at the holographic viewscreen that was positioned at the front of the bridge. It was set to wide screen and displayed a man who looked as if he had a permanent sour disposition.

"Look Cyclops, you and your aliens have no jurisdiction here," Captain Trevor Hall of the EAS Heracles commanded a task force of six Omega class destroyers and obviously held Ec'co in complete contempt.

From the planet below and the crews of those six destroyers, it looked laughable that a vessel only 794 meters long would try to stand off such a collection of ships from Earthforce.

"We recognize the declaration of independence of the Proxima government," Ec'co said ignoring the cyclops remark. His people are a silicon based species with only one eye, and it had no pupil.

Still he is impossibly as it seems, half-human. He knew the remark and didn't like it. "I call upon you and your ships to withdraw from this space," he added to Hall's laugh, it wasn't a pleasant sight or sound.

"Boy I have 270 million metric tons of war machine ready to spread you and your crew to dust particles in orbit of this world. You sure you want to die for something that's not even your business?" Hall said with a sneer. He honestly felt the alien didn't understand what he was up against.

"I'll take my five to your two hundred," Ec'co replied. He knew Tok, the Hak'tyl's M5, would do much to equal the odds without even resorting to beaming warheads to make opposition tonnage a moot point.

Yet Captain Varley wanted to keep transporter technology hidden for now. It was still six vessels with little to no shield technologies. Hopefully it won't come to a fight, but Ec'co believed this bigot wanted one.

"I'm calling you on that boy. Say goodbye..." Hall made a chopping motion not turning from the pickup, he wanted to see the look on the aliens face when his ship started to come apart on him.

Four 52mm Plasma Pulse Cannons fired at the Independence class ship and Hall sat back waiting for the look of shock he expected to make out on that green faced, single eyed freak who dared oppose him.

He sat up when a sensor op reported no damage. Hall looked over at the man, forgetting the com was still open. "What do you mean no damage? Fire again! Add in the lasers! Launch fighters..."

"Fire EVERYTHING!"

Plasma pulse cannons, lasers, 40mm cannons, and missiles were flung at the Hak'tyl, two full squadrons of Starfuries flew at the single ship and added their pulse discharge cannons.

Hall just expected the screen to vanish in static as the alien ship was wiped out of existence.

He sat up with his mouth open, gapped and jaw dropped as he stared at the image of that single, gem like eye in a face that barely moved as that ship only felt tremors...-TREMORS- from the onslaught.

"All ships launch all fighters! Fire all weapons! I want that ship gone from my skies!"

Chronophasic shielding spread the damage out over not only the physical area of the shield but across time, and across several phases, significantly reducing the load on the shield.

Still Ec'co heard his Tactical Officer, Kalakek, chitter, the Reetou didn't like just standing here and taking it.

He also realized if he had his ship stand here too long passively, the shields might get overwhelmed, and the armor could only take so much.

If he waited too long, he might get a 'visit' from his Chief Engineer, and it was always disconcerting when he popped up here on the bridge while at the same time remained in engineering.

Straegis were weird like that in a 4D life form sort of way and a Straegis Titan was a huge 4D life form.

"Sir, may I remind you humans can be very stubborn," Todd said leaning in towards his young captain.

The long haired Wraith thought back over the centuries to Sheppard, McKay, and Weir. He knew humans can be stubborn.

"Right," Ec'co recalled his father, no matter what the obvious said that human life and hrathi life shouldn't be able to reproduce, he found a science team to make it happen, "Tok, launch drones, declaw Heracles."

Tok knew that was two different orders, meaning the drones to take on the fighters, the Hak'tyl the Heracles.

He'd let the XO gently guide the Captain about how to phrase his orders a little better. Tok knew some M5s can be quite pedantic.

Those were the ships that were not popular. While such lessons might seem wasted given their timeline is gone, Tok didn't want bad habits to form anyway. Better deal with it now.

Tok launched a multitude of vaguely squid-shaped 'missiles,' as far as the Earthforce crews could tell, from a bay on the roll bar at the rear of the secondary hull.

Tok's perception was in each one of them. For him it was like his flying a fighter. Each drone was him.

They could have easily blew away each of the two hundred sixty fighters before them, however Tok had them wing, nick and graze fighters spinning many out of control. It was his warning shots to the fighters.

For the Heracles, ten monophasic emitters from the Hak'tyl took out the four plasma pulse cannons, four laser cannons and two of the eight 40mm cannons in its first salvo. The other six cannons in the next.

An advancement of the quantum phaser array, which in Ec'co's timeline was originally developed as an anti-Borg and Replicator weapon.

It involved individual emitters that randomly modulated their beam and when combined would produce a phaser beam of multiple modulation to decrease the chances of the Borg or Replicator adaption.

Monophasic let it cover all the frequencies at once making its use wasted on unshielded ships.

Still they were preferable to the polaron beam and there were more than one emitter of them.

Drones took out the Interceptors.

Hall just sat there, dumbfounded as his whole worldview couldn't conceive of what was happening.

"Sir? Sir!" his second in command, Commander Sandra Levitt tried to get his attention, "SIR!"

He blinked, sat up, "Cease fire!" Hall knew when he was being played with.

"Its too late sir," Levitt said sounding forlorn and defeated herself.

"Why is that?" he snapped now noticing there wasn't any weapon fire, but the sky filled with what seemed like thousands of bright yellow points of light, some returning to the bay they had flown from.

"We have nothing left to fire with sir," she nearly moaned meaning the entire task force.

Tok was making a point, he could have launched the precise number needed to do what he had done with a second launch, take out all the weapons and interceptors of the other five Omega class destroyers.

"You haven't heard the last of this Cyclops!" Hall snarled as he shook a forefinger at Ec'co. Then the channel closed and six jump points formed, the task force was leaving.

Proxima III would remain free.

**EAS Schwarzkopf, Orion VII, Sector 452**

It had been days since the Clarkstown pursed the Alexander and hit it amidships. Days since the Alexander eluded her. If it went to Babylon Five, where Captain Charlotte Clark knew her cousin was sending overwhelming forces there, it would be over. Captains Smith and Drake would see to that.

If it went to Proxima, then Captain Hall's fleet will nab them.

So Charlotte decided that Orion VII is where they would stay. Outsystem, in hiding, which is probably what gave the EAS Netherlands the guts to go ahead with its rebellion against her cousin's Presidency.

Netherlands, Thebes and it looked like the Valkyrie. Three ships against her force of five ships. If Hague comes here, then she will be waiting for him.

She did briefly wonder where Crawford and her fleet were, but knew what that woman thought of her. Crawford probably moved on to let the 'political appointee' fall flat on her face without a nursemaid and apparently Crawford decided it wouldn't be her. Captain Charlotte Clark decided she would show them, show all of them that she is ready for the big chair and doesn't need any hand holding.

"Move in to Orion VII," she ordered, "Leap frog in." One ship would open a jump point to let the others fly into hyperspace to let another ship open a jump point at their destination for her fleet to exit.

Even if her ship hadn't been a Nova, the rebels were outnumbered two to one. Her force of two Hyperions, two Omegas and her own Nova would make short work of the rebel ships. Soon enough the fighting began.

She started bombarding the Valkyrie even as the Netherlands drove off the EAS Shikoro, with the other loyalist ship, the EAS Nauplius, damaged and trying to move off.

"This will be a short rebellion," she said to her crew, "All ships ready your marines. You'll land at the capitol to secure the government once we destroy the ships in orbit."

Not ask for a surrender, not drive off, but destroy.

Maybe later, once she was safe back home, she would consider the irony of her decision as it wasn't the rebel forces that were destroyed.

Twenty-two plasma cannons and six particle beam guns slammed their discharges into what made it past the Valkyrie's interceptors and defense grid. It wasn't a burning wreck now, but it would be in a volley or two.

That's when it happened, something just appeared in the way of the next volley from the Schwarzkopf. An alien ship nearly as big as an Omega class destroyer, with alien script on its hull.

If they could read Klingonese they would discern it is the UIS Qo'noS.

"Incoming message," the com officer reported and with a nod from Clark, the officer opened the channel.

"Stand down," a gravely voice came over the com, "Or I'll shot you down."

Charlotte saw a fearsome alien visage staring back at her. It was the monster under the bed, the one in the closet, the ogre that cooked you, and the troll under the bridge.

It was demanding a toll she couldn't give into. Morgan wouldn't hear of it, "Not going to happen."

"Suit yourself," the alien monster said as she had her Nova redirect its fire at the alien ship. Weapons fire from all twenty-eight weapons were stopped by some kind of energy shield.

From what she guessed were wingtips, emerald beams speared out and towards her ships. The twin beams turned out to be warning shots, or had to be as the bolts 'grazed' her ship.

Her people were still trying to analyze what kind of particle beams burned through her ship's cannons port and starboard. The output of the cannons was measured in the hundreds of thousands of terawatts.

It said a lot about the precision or lucky firing as only the cannons on the sides of the Nova were hit.

Charlotte though watched the com was still open as the ogre had more to say.

"I'm Captain Wrex and -that- was my warning shot."

**EAS Apollo , Mars orbit**

Another shudder was felt through his ship, and General Robert Lefcourt knew his intended blockade of Mars was under attack...again. At first it felt like warnings as non-critical systems were shot up.

Then the closer his force of ships vectored to Mars, the more severe the damage to his ships became. He started off with thirty-five ships, an overwhelming number to blockade and secure Mars completely.

What now neared orbit was half that number. The others weren't destroyed, they were disabled. And he felt whomever, whatever, was doing this could easily up the ante to start blowing ships out of space.

They could not see a cloaked Leviathan gunship named Talyn, a Lieutenant in Starfleet, lead cloaked slipfighters on their runs to harry and disable the Earthforce ships. They just experienced the attacks.

"Dutchmen again sir!" a rating called out using the nickname for the invisible ships attacking them.

The nickname had started months ago with rumors of some ghost ship helping the Narns. Then other ghost ships attacking the Centauri, keeping them from expanding too far against their neighbors.

Ghost ships, from the fact they were supposedly invisible. Dutchmen came naturally from the stories of the most infamous ghost ship of legend, the Flying Dutchman.

Lefcourt didn't believe in ghost stories. However after this approach to Mars whittled down his forces to half of what he started from Earth with, Dutchmen were very real to the him and his fleet.

"Just keep trying to get a firing solution!" he ordered any ship that had a chance. Going weapons free at one point during the running fight to Mars almost bagged one of their own to friendly fire.

Captain Charles Mitchell didn't have time for the big picture, as Captain of the Apollo he was to serve as Second-in-Command to General Lefcourt. Right now he just wanted to have his ship, any ship score a hit.

Unlike Mitchell, Lefcourt did see the big picture, and that's what made this situation that much worse in the long run. If anyone really paid attention, they'd notice for whatever reason there had been few loss of life.

However ever ship was rattled by fire from a Dutchman at some point during the night. He couldn't guess how many of them there were. Sometimes only a few ships were hit, something all of them.

It was like there were ghost...fighters, making strafing runs on his ships.

Lieutenant Talyn continued with his detachment of cloaked Slipfighters on runs to discourage approach to Mars. The flight of four RF-42 Centaur Tactical fighters performed strike after strike with him. Their hits were precise, and just enough energy imparted by each shot to create hours of work for repair crews.

What Starfuries were out were it. They too were getting whittled down with disabling shots.

"Hit-em, Hit-Em, HIT THEM!" Mitchell yelled during the latest mass fire. Nothing they knew of could move out of the kill zone that the Dutchmen attack just came out of to hit the EAS Zeus.

Yet Talyn and his flight had phase cloak, even if shots should have hit they didn't, passing through them.

"Easy Mitchell," Lefcourt had to keep his head even if he felt just like Mitchell. Minutes of active scans resulted in the conclusion that it didn't appear as if there was a hit on the Dutchmen this time either.

Lefcourt's ships were to deny Mars to everyone else, but it looked like instead his ships were denied Mars.

He just didn't realize how far that meant until the com officer called out, "We're being hailed sir!"

"Put them on."

General Robert Lefcourt had never seen a Delvian before. He just stared at the blue woman on his com and saw anger in her eyes and in ever line of her face. He also heard sheer outrage in her voice.

"Please move off. Your government's actions have caused the asphyxiation of 11,000 innocents. I will not let you kill any more." She didn't mention resuscitation of all of those men, women and children. She was too angry.

"We recognize Mars' declaration of independence and will protect their nation. Turn back."

Aliens, he thought to himself. Blue, beautiful, exotic, it doesn't matter, they have no business in this and worse, they are usurping Earth Alliance territory.

"Mars is Earth Alliance territory. You are interfering in an internal affair-"

"Turn back, this is your last warning," Zhaen cut him off, she livid that anyone could commit such atrocities on their own people.

"Look here-"

"Energize."

It was the last word Lefcourt heard aboard the EAS Apollo.

One moment he was on his bridge, the next he was in front of his home...

On Earth.

Every man and woman of his fleet were now either standing in front of their homes or at the last base on Earth they had been listed posted to.

They had no knowledge of transporters, transwarp beaming or mass beaming. They did not know that Grace looked up where their homes were on Earth, or their last base posted to, on their own computers.

From their point of view one moment they were on their ships or fighters, the next they were on Earth.

In space flew fifteen empty Omega class destroyers and their Starfuries bereft of nearly three hundred thousand crew, pilots and marines.

By the end of this day, Mars, Orion VII, Proxima III and Babylon Five remained free.


End file.
